More Than a Dozen Bay Area College Campuses Cancel In-Person Classes

Several college campuses around the Bay Area have shut down in-person class instruction in an effort to reduce spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. Though most campuses have not reported any confirmed cases, administrations are understandably concerned for the student body, faculty and staff in confined, poorly ventilated, close-proximity environments.   

Most students themselves are not considered high-risk in terms of dangers associated with contracting the virus — it’s largely believed that, without an underlying health condition, younger people will manage recovery with relative ease. But those same students can easily carry and spread the infection to other more vulnerable people in the population. That concern grows as Spring Break nears and students plan to head home to visit family. 

It also bears saying that although students are often viewed as young, healthy individuals, some are not.

Sproul Hall at University of California at Berkeley. Photo by Guowei Yang/Wikimedia Commons.

It is widely acknowledged that there are countless people walking around with the infection, often asymptomatic. We can’t know the true spread impact without mass testing, which is not happening on a large scale. It is thereby enormously possible that some of us are walking carriers and should be conscious of that in group settings. With that said, college administrations are smart to reduce the opportunities for contraction until the virus peaks and begins to wind down here in the U.S.

Here are a list of college campuses around the Bay Area that have either closed or moved away from in-person instruction as of Wednesday:

• Berkeley City College
• California State University East Bay
• City College of San Francisco
• College of Alameda
• Evergreen Valley College
• Laney College
• Merritt College
• Mission College
• San Francisco State University
• San Jose City College
• San Jose State University
• Santa Clara University
• Stanford University
• The Academy of Art
• University of California at Berkeley
• University of California at Santa Cruz