The University of Notre Dame on Tuesday announced a two-week shift to fully remote undergraduate classes, following a steep rise in coronavirus cases that officials linked to off-campus parties. Dr. Scott Gottlieb, member of the boards of Pfizer and biotech company Illumina and former FDA commissioner, joins "Squawk Box" to discuss how colleges can handle these outbreaks. For access to live and exclusive video from CNBC subscribe to CNBC PRO: [ Ссылка ]
The coronavirus is already scratching carefully laid plans to bring students back to campus at some U.S. universities less than two weeks after they arrived — or even before they showed up.
The University of Notre Dame on Tuesday announced it will pause in-person undergraduate classes for at least two weeks, following a steep rise in coronavirus cases that officials linked to off-campus parties just one week into the fall semester.
Less than an hour later, Michigan State University said it was pivoting to an online-only fall for undergrads before they arrive on campus, telling students who planned to live in dorms to stay home. Classes at Michigan State, which has almost 40,000 undergrads, are set to begin Sept. 2. Similarly, Ithaca College in upstate New York told its 5,500 students Tuesday that it will not welcome them back to campus for the semester as planned.
In a letter to students, Michigan State president, Dr. Samuel Stanley, pointed to the challenges at other schools as they welcomed students back and the general state of the U.S. Covid-19 outbreak.
“It has become evident to me that, despite our best efforts and strong planning, it is unlikely we can prevent widespread transmission of COVID-19 between students if our undergraduates return to campus,” wrote Stanley, an infectious disease expert.
The changes came just one day after the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill halted in-person classes for the fall, only a week after they began, citing a spike in infections. Remote instruction begins Wednesday.
The swift turnabout underscores the challenges of welcoming students back to campus during the pandemic that caused colleges in March to cancel in-person instruction and ride out the academic period remotely.
“The problem with school reopenings is that we’re so f---ing stupid about doing it,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Universities that planned to have students on campus this fall took a number of measures to keep the coronavirus in check, including mandatory face masks and smaller class sizes to allow for social distancing. Testing for Covid-19 also is playing a key role at many schools.
But Offit pointed to indications that social distancing and mask compliance aren’t always being followed, especially at off-campus parties. “When you go back to school like that, of course, you’re going to have problems,” he said. “I can’t stand these schools who say we can’t enforce that.”
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