CHAPEL HILL (Jan. 19, 2021) – UNC-Chapel Hill learned a few things about COVID-19 and human behavior last fall.
As students resume classes today, Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz says in the accompanying video, officials have put those lessons to work.
“It’ll be different from a typical semester, but we’re going to do everything we can to deliver as close to a sort of ‘normal’ experience as we can for our students,” Guskiewicz says, chuckling at his own choice of words.
The spring semester was delayed by two weeks, with classes scheduled to start today.
Then, as COVID-19 cases continued to mount across the state after the holidays, resumption of in-person classes for undergraduates was delayed another three weeks, until Feb. 8. Just 18% of undergraduate courses are scheduled for in-person classes, Guskiewicz says.
The biggest change is a robust testing program, with mandatory COVID-19 re-entry testing and twice-a-week tests for students who live on campus.
The 3,200-3,300 students who will live on campus will have single rooms. And at least four residence halls – 520 rooms – are reserved for isolation and quarantine of students exposed to the virus.
“But it’s still going to take a commitment of everyone in our community to ensure success and to make sure that we’re following the COVID-19 Community Standards,” Guskiewicz says:
- Wear a mask;
- Wait 6 feet apart;
- Comply with gathering limits;
- Monitor your health;
- Comply with testing, tracing and quarantine/isolation requirements.
That’s the human behavior part, along with hand-washing and immunizations.1
But Guskiewicz remains optimistic.
“We’ll continue to monitor it,” he says. “Based on what we know now, with all of that information, we believe we’ll be in a better position at that point than where we are right now.”
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