Yale Tells Students To Stay Off Campus For Rest Of Semester

NEW HAVEN, CT — Yale University has announced that students should remain off campus for the rest of the semester. The announcement comes following the discovery of the first student to test positive for COVID-19.

Previously, the university had announced that students should remain home until at least April 5.

Below is part of a statement the university released Saturday:

Online Classes, and Students Remain Off Campus, for Balance of Semester
As this news highlights, the increasing intensity of the COVID-19 pandemic has required that we revisit decisions that seemed proactive when first announced just days before. On March 10, I let you know that through at least April 5, we would ask Yale College students to remain at home after recess and graduate students to remain off campus as much as possible, and that we would hold classes online using Zoom, Canvas, and other digital tools. It was my hope then that we might see a return to normalcy before the end of the semester.

With regret, and in consultation with Yale’s medical and public-health experts and other university leaders, I have concluded that an early return to the classroom is not possible. The clearest relevant lesson we have drawn from our best-informed, wisest sources is this: pandemics are defeated by bold measures that blunt the curve of the rate of infection through the dramatic reduction of intense human contact.

I have therefore decided that the measures we announced on March 10—keeping students off campus and moving teaching online—will apply through the full spring semester, including final examinations.

I hasten to note one vital exception: Yale will house those students who simply cannot go home, whether because they come from a country severely affected by COVID-19, or for other serious reasons. Deans and others have been or will be in close touch with such students—they and a great number of others are working around the clock to offer support worthy of Yale.
A special request to Yale College students: please refrain from coming back to campus right now to retrieve your belongings. Dean Marvin Chun and his staff will be in touch with you soon about making necessary arrangements.

I realize that today’s decision may be distressing to some. I am thinking in particular of those students who are finishing their time at Yale this semester. For them, the present anxiety is compounded by sadness over the loss of what should have been a warm, celebratory final semester. Please know that I share your disappointment. But also know that I, with other Yale leaders, will be thinking of ways we can, once COVID-19 is behind us, bring you back to campus to celebrate. It is too soon to say whether Commencement Weekend, scheduled for mid-May, will be carried out in the traditional way. But one way or another, we will come together in due time.