UNC Chapel Hill Shuts Down Due To COVID-19


Tuesday, August 18, 2020

After one week, in-person classes have been shut down. Starting Wednesday of this week, all undergraduate in-person instruction will be online and done remotely at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, shown in the image.



The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has shifted undergraduate instruction fully online after at least 130 students tested positive for the novel coronavirus during the first week of classes in an original return to campus.


UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz and Provost Robert Blouin announced the decision Monday, only one week after in-person and on campus classes had started and residence halls were opened at limited capacity. During the first week, less than 30% of total classroom seats were occupied in person.

Even with social and physical distancing protocol in place, the number of COVID-19 cases soared in a matter of days. According to the university’s dashboard, 130 students and five employees have tested positive during the first week. The positivity rate on campus rose from 2.8% to 13.6% between August 10th and August 16th. As of yesterday, Monday August 17th, 177 students are in isolation and 349 are in quarantine. Most have demonstrated only “mild symptoms”.

UNC-Chapel Hill Officials have shared, “As much as we believed we have worked diligently to help create a healthy and safe campus living and learning environment, the current data presents an untenable situation. We are working with the UNC System office to identify the most effective way to further achieve de-densification of our residence halls and our campus facilities.”

Starting tomorrow, Wednesday August 19th, all undergraduate in-person instruction will be remote. UNC Chapel Hill will be going back to online college and online learning. This change and the “reduction of campus activities” will mean that many undergraduate students living on campus will change plans for the fall.

Students who “have hardships” such as lack of access to stable internet connection or international students and student athletes can choose to remain on campus.

According to UNC System President Peter Hans, there are no current plans to modify operations at any other universities. There have been many calls to reconsider in-person learning during the weekend as the school continued to report coronavirus clusters during its first few days.

According to National Public Radio, Faculty Chair Mimi Chapman sent a letter to the UNC System board of governors advocating for more campus-based authority to respond to the pandemic: “We knew there would be more positive cases on our campus. But clusters, five or more people that are connected in one place, are a different story. The presence of clusters should be triggering reconsideration of residential, in-person learning.”

Barbara Rimer, UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health’s Dean, shared in a blog post: “We have tried to make this work but it is not working.” Students on campus practice social distancing and wear masks, but “reports of off-campus behavior showed a different pattern.”

Rimer has since shared approval of the administrative decision to move undergraduate learning to online college classes, and to accept residence hall cancellation request with no penalty.

The decision comes one day after UNC-Chapel Hill announced identification of its fourth cluster, defined as five or more cases in a single residential hall or dwelling.

The latest cluster as at Hinton James Residence Hall.

Individuals in the cluster are isolating and receiving medical monitoring. All dormitory residents have been given “additional information about this cluster and next steps.”

The university also shares that contract tracing is underway.

On Friday, the university announced the identification of two separate sets of clusters: one at a residence hall populated mostly by first-year students and one at a privately managed apartment complex that houses UNC students. The next day, there was another cluster reported at an off-campus fraternity house.

UNC-Chapel Hill started the school year with about 5,800 students in dorms. Other students live nearby off-campus.

Classes were offered through a number of different learning models including in-person, remote/online only, and hybrid models.

The university had originally prepared for five months to identify, trace, and isolate potential positive cases on and off-campus as part of its fall reopening plan. The plan included guidelines for face coverings, physical distancing and on-campus gatherings, which are limited to 25 people both indoors and outdoors. State public health orders limit gatherings to a max of 10 people indoors and 25 outdoors.

As of Friday, 1,049 North Carolinians were hospitalized with the virus. There have been over 145,000 positive cases and over 2,300 deaths.

Higher education institutions across the country are beginning their fall semesters as the global pandemic continues.

Many have already death with a jump in infections. Many clusters have originated in fraternity houses.




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