Just a few days before the end of the semester, Cornell University is shutting down its campus and moving final exams online because of a recent surge in COVID-19 cases among its overwhelmingly vaccinated student population.
In a message released Tuesday, Cornell President Martha E. Pollack told the campus community that the university’s surveillance testing “has continued to identify the rapid spread of COVID-19” among students.
According to the Ivy League school’s website, 97 percent of the overall population on the Ithaca, New York campus has been fully vaccinated. That includes 100 percent of professional faculty, 98 percent of other employees, and 99 percent of undergraduate students. As of Dec. 12, there are 469 active student cases, including 214 newly confirmed positives.
“While faculty and staff case numbers currently remain low, just last evening our COVID-19 testing lab team identified evidence of the highly contagious Omicron variant in a significant number of Monday’s positive student samples,” Pollack said, adding that the university now moves to “alert level red,” which indicates high risk, for the first time since the early days of the pandemic.
Pollack also emphasized that there is only preliminary evidence of Omicron’s presence on the Cornell campus, as PCR testing has identified the variant’s characteristic “S-gene dropout” in a substantial number of virus samples.
That being said, the university is “proceeding as if it is” while awaiting genome sequencing information that can confirm whether the source is Omicron.
In an effort to curb the spread of what could be Omicron, which appears to be significantly more transmissible but generally causes milder symptoms compared to other variants, Cornell is going to facilitate a number of changes.
- All university activities involving undergraduates and all university-sponsored events, including the Dec. 18 graduation ceremony, will be canceled.
- Libraries and gyms will be closed.
- Students are also advised to get a negative COVID-19 test result before any travel.
- Visitors and guests are not allowed on campus, except those coming to pick up students for break.
“Any student who has not tested negative in the past 48 hours should get a supplemental test as soon as possible,” Pollack wrote.
“Students are encouraged to stay in Ithaca, in their residences, until their test results are received, and severely limit interactions with others during that time.”
Because the vaccine works SO well…line up for your booster… again… and again.. and again…
This is good- the faster kids realize that they are being had, that their education is a scam and drop out, the better.
By the way, SU students- DROP OUT NOW. Go learn a useful trade. There is not one thing you can learn at that school that you cannot learn better faster and cheaper online.
Pelaton case detected too !!!!
Better, faster, cheaper.
Usually, you can only pick two out of those three….
An old engineering joke….