Virus review: Clusters erupt at universities nationwide as semester begins. Here’s the latest.
From the dorms at North Carolina to the halls of Notre Dame, officials at universities around the U.S. scrambled on Monday to deal with new COVID-19 clusters at the start of the fall semester, some of them linked to off-campus parties and packed clubs.
North Carolina’s flagship university suspended in-person classes for undergraduates just a week into the fall semester. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said it will switch to remote learning on Wednesday and make arrangements for students who want to leave campus housing.
UNC said the clusters were discovered in dorms, a fraternity house and other student housing.
The University of Notre Dame reported 58 confirmed cases since students returned to the South Bend, Indiana, campus in early August. At least two off-campus parties over a week ago have been identified as sources, school officials said.
Outbreaks earlier this summer at fraternities in Washington state, California and Mississippi provided a glimpse of the challenges school officials face in keeping the virus from spreading on campuses where young people eat, live, study — and party — in close quarters.
The virus has been blamed for over 170,000 deaths and 5.4 million confirmed infections in the U.S.
In other developments:
- President Donald Trump’s plan to offer a stripped-down boost in unemployment benefits to millions of Americans amid the coronavirus outbreak has found little traction among the states, which would have to pay a quarter of the cost to deliver the maximum benefit.
- As states around the country require visitors from areas with high rates of coronavirus infections to quarantine upon arrival, children taking end-of-summer vacations to hot spots are facing the possibility of being forced to skip the start of in-person learning at their schools.
- A state agency says it is working to fix a data error on Iowa’s coronavirus website that lowers the number of new confirmed cases and therefore downplays the severity of the current outbreak, just as schools are deciding whether to reopen.
- Frustrated by scenes of crowded entertainment districts and bars on the first weekend many students returned to the University of Alabama, officials on Monday looked for ways to improve safety during the coronavirus pandemic and hopefully save college football this year.
- The NCAA will likely decide next month whether to start the college basketball season on time or have a delay due to the coronavirus pandemic. The NCAA has developed and studied contingency plans in case the season cannot be started on Nov. 10.
- Wimbledon champion Simona Halep will skip the U.S. Open, saying Monday she is putting her health first and prefers to stay in Europe during the coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. Open is scheduled to start at Flushing Meadows on Aug. 31.
- The Canadian Football League canceled its 2020 season Monday because of the pandemic, marking the first year since 1919 the Grey Cup won’t be awarded.
- For four nurses in a Southern California hospital, the scariest place isn’t the ward where they care for coronavirus patients. It’s home: where their kids play and their spouses sleep.
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