UNC-CH Scrambles To Deal With Virus Outbreak

North Carolina's flagship university canceled in-person classes for undergraduates just a week into the fall semester. This happened as the school and other campuses around the U.S. scrambled to deal with coronavirus clusters linked in some cases to student housing, off-campus parties, and packed bars.

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

"We have emphasized that if we were faced with the need to change plans — take an off-ramp — we would not hesitate to do so, but we have not taken this decision lightly," read a statement from UNC-CH after reporting 130 confirmed infections among students and five among employees over the past week.

UNC said the clusters were discovered in dorms, a fraternity house, and other student housing.

Before the decision came down, the student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, ran an editorial headlined, "UNC has a clusterf—k on its hands," though without the dashes. 

The paper said that the parties that took place over the weekend were no surprise and that administrators should have begun the semester with online-only instruction at the university, which has 19,000 undergraduates.

"We all saw this coming," the editorial said.