Morning virus update: Will you get a refund if COVID-19 closes your campus? Get caught up.
Many colleges are welcoming students back for in-person learning and dormitory living this fall semester. Looming over everything: Campuses could shut back down at any time.
With COVID-19 cases still high, many colleges are developing shutdown contingency plans alongside their reopening arrangements.
At the same time, the pandemic is fueling new debate about whether colleges should charge the same tuition for online and in-person classes. Tuition typically covers the cost of instruction — salaries, software, labs and such — and that cost at many schools may have increased. Read the full story here:
Here’s an update on all developments. Scroll or swipe further for in-depth coverage.
- Target reported recorded-setting sales growth online and at established stores over the past three months, more evidence that big box retailers have become essential points of supply during the pandemic.
- Comparable store sales in the U.S. surged 35.1% at Lowe’s and online orders more than doubled with Americans spending much more time at home during the pandemic. The report comes one day after Home Depot reported similarly explosive sales.
- Senate Republican leaders are preparing a slimmed-down coronavirus relief package of roughly $500 billion. The bill does not include a renewal of the one-time direct payments of up to $1,200 for taxpayers and dependents that were part of early legislation.
- For more than two months, the 11 million residents of Wuhan endured a strict lockdown as coronavirus raced around the city in central China. Now, some are letting loose en masse at rocking nighttime pool parties at a popular amusement park chain.
- Pope Francis on Wednesday warned against any prospect that rich people would get priority for a coronavirus vaccine.
- Millions of women and girls globally have lost access to contraceptives and abortion services because of the coronavirus pandemic. Now the first widespread measure of the toll says India with its abrupt, months-long lockdown has been hit especially hard.
- Texas reported more than 200 additional coronavirus deaths Tuesday as the total number of infections surpassed 550,000 statewide.
- An Iowa county said Tuesday that a clinic failed to report up to 3,000 negative coronavirus test results, as concerns about inaccuracies in the state’s official pandemic data continued to mount even as schools use it to determine their fall plans.
- London’s Heathrow Airport, the U.K.’s busiest, unveiled a new coronavirus testing facility Wednesday that it says could halve the length of time people have to stay at home after arriving from countries on the British government’s quarantine list.
For more summaries and full reports, please select from the articles below. Scroll further for the latest virus numbers.
—
