Clemson University to start fall semester with online classes due to COVID-19 concerns
Clemson University has maintained the past couple of months that it plans to have classes in-person to start the fall semester. On Wednesday, the university announced a new plan due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Clemson President Jim Clements revealed that classes will be online to begin the fall semester.
Under the new plan, Clemson is delaying in-person instruction until Sept. 21. The semester is still scheduled to begin Aug. 19.
“We’re going to start on time. We’re just going to start online for a few weeks,” Clements told reporters. “The virus is running pretty strong down here and the hospitals are running pretty close to capacity.”
The new move-in date for Clemson students is Sept. 13 and all current restrictions on campus gatherings and events will remain in place until further notice, Clements announced.
Clemson originally announced in May that it had a three-phase plan to begin in-person classes on time for the fall semester. At that time, the state of South Carolina’s highest total for new coronavirus cases in one day was 276. The state had not reached 200 cases in one day the previous five days and there was optimism from the university that the number of cases in the state would decline, leading up to the start of classes in August.
Nearly a month after Clemson’s announcement, South Carolina started regularly seeing at least 1,000 new cases of COVID-19 per day. There have been at least 1,000 new confirmed cases statewide 15 consecutive days and 28 of the past 29 days.
Clements called the plan the “safest and best strategy for the Clemson family to minimize risks.”
“It is possible that we could’ve had several thousand cases of the virus on the campus if we opened now,” Clements said, citing input from predictive models from health experts.
Clements also said school leaders expect a “dip” in COVID-19 cases in the community by Labor Day.
“We believe that by delaying the resumption of on-campus activities for another four weeks, and by strictly following the recommended health precautions, the disease will be reduced to a point where we can safely return to something approximating a normal learning environment,” Clements said through a statement. “We also will use the time to execute a previously announced plan to test all our students in order to provide a better means to predict infection rates in our community.”
This story was originally published July 22, 2020 at 3:36 PM with the headline "Clemson University to start fall semester with online classes due to COVID-19 concerns."
