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The University of Notre Dame suspended in-person classes on Tuesday, eight days after the school’s fall semester began and after 146 students and one staff member tested positive for the coronavirus, officials said .
The two-week suspension, which goes into effect Wednesday for the school’s 12,000 students, came a day after the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill made a similar announcement and while Michigan State University ordered undergraduate study on Tuesday to stay home for the remainder of the fall “with immediate effect”.
“The virus is a formidable enemy,” said Father John Jenkins, president of Notre Dame University, in a press release. “For a week, he has won. As a fighting Irishman, we unite to contain it.
As of Aug. 3, 927 people have been tested for the virus and 147 have returned positive results, the school said.
Most of those students were older people living off campus who contracted the disease at gatherings where social distancing rules were not followed and masks were not worn, the school said, citing an analysis of contact tracing.
None of the students were hospitalized and the school said it would implement distance learning for two weeks.
In Michigan, the university had yet to start its fall semester as it suddenly told students to stay away from campus. In a letter to students on Tuesday, university president Samuel Stanley Jr. attributed the decision to “the current state of the virus in our country – especially what we are seeing in other institutions as ‘they’re repopulating their campus communities. “
The school’s distance education will begin on September 2, he said.
On Monday, UNC-Chapel Hill became the first university in the United States to drop in-person classes after it reopened for the fall semester on August 10. Five school employees and 130 students have tested positive, the school said.
“Many students, graduates, staff, some faculty, and even the local county health department have warned that this is about to happen,” said Lamar Richards, student chair of the Campus Equality Commission and student equity at UNC.
In an open letter, Richards said the school administration’s “recklessness and dereliction of duty” caused the outbreaks.
Wong wong contributed.
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