The University of Missouri has announced has suspended all its in-person classes and shifted to all online classes.
While disclosing this in a letter sent to the campus community on Thursday November 12, 2020, Mun Choi, Chancellor and President of the university’s four-campus system, said the university will no longer hold class on campus and will “shift to remote instruction and finals.”
He added that all students have been directed to go home for the holiday break and not return to campus until January.
“We believe these actions will support our community, and will provide the best path forward for our university’s return to in-person learning in the spring semester,” Mun Choi, said.
At the start of the school year, officials had thought they might go online only after Thanksgiving. But then last month, they said they were pleased with how the Columbia campus was managing the coronavirus and would continue with a mix of in-person and online classes.
The university has had 2,153 cases since Aug. 19, and as of Wednesday had 165 active cases.
On Monday MU was reporting 11 new cases, and that number more than quadrupled to 47 Wednesday.
“We have said from the beginning that our decisions would follow medical and public health guidance, and they would be based on a full evaluation of circumstances and not driven by a single number,” Choi said.
“While our experts say that MU students have not presented a direct burden to the local hospitals because they have not needed hospitalization, we all are members of the broader community. And as the community strives to gain control of the virus, a temporary thinning of the student population is helpful,” he added.
The university said it will lend some of its contact tracers, case investigators and medical professionals to support surrounding Boone County’s needs.
The health department reports that the county has had 7,763 COVID-19 cases — 2,851 of those people ages 18 to 22.
