The university has announced campus will remain open, but face-to-face instruction has been suspended.
COVID-19, more often referred to as “The Coronavirus” has made its way into Michigan.
Michigan State University has announced that in-person classes will be suspended in lieu of online classes. The suspension will start at Noon Wednesday, March 11 and last until at least April 20.
According to the school, “On March 11, MSU learned of an individual linked to our campus who the Ingham County Health Department is currently investigating and monitoring. The day before, state officials announced the first confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in Michigan.”
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced Tuesday night that two people in the state–in Oakland and Wayne Counties–had tested positive for COVID-19.
The school is also monitoring large-scale gatherings to be held on campus in the future, as well as limiting future events in confined spaces. “We will provide more information soon and urge everyone to consider the health implications of large gatherings and evaluate the essential nature of the events. We will not be scheduling new events with more than 100 individuals in a confined space during for this time period unless there are special circumstances,” says the release.
Michigan State is just one of many colleges or college areas impacted by the spread of COVID-19. A number of schools have switched to online classes, the Ivy League basketball tournament has been cancelled, and a number of NCAA Tournament host sites for both men and women are in cities or states that have limited or banned large-scale events. The MAC conference tournament is currently being played in Cleveland, OH–site of a pod of NCAA Tournament games–without fans due to outbreak fears. The potential for this type of scenario at sporting events across the country is growing very real.
On Wednesday morning the NCAA cancelled a media teleconference with basketball committee chair Kevin White. Thus far the NCAA hasn’t had much to say in response to their biggest event of the season being impacted by a viral disease outbreak.
More locally, the Big Ten Tournament–which kicks off Wednesday night in Indianapolis–is scheduled to go on as planned, but the conference has not updated the situation in a handful of days, during which the cases of COVID-19 in the United States have continued to grow. We will have more on this story when it is available.
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