Falwell recalled 2,000 students. 800 have now gone back home.
Falwell is now denying he put students at risk and telling the NYT they need to retract their story. But 800 students have gone home, and Fallwell is offering a (paltry) $1000 tuition credit to students who don't want to stay. People in Lynchburg, VA, where Liberty U is based, are furious ( https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/29/falwell-liberty-university-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-152467 ) because Falwell has put the entire community at risk.
Here's The Hill's coverage:
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/490091-liberty-university-students-report-symptoms-that-suggest-coronavirus
The school's director of student health services told The New York Timesin an interview that nearly a dozen students had reported symptoms similar to those experienced in confirmed coronavirus cases, with three of those students later being sent to hospitals for testing. No cases of the virus have been confirmed on the school's campus.
Liberty was in the news this week after students began returning to the Virginia campus despite the increasing number of coronavirus cases across the nation.
Students returning to campus are now reportedly being directed to self-quarantine for two weeks, while Liberty's president, Jerry Falwell Jr., told the Times that around 800 of the 1,900 students who initially returned to on-campus housing for spring semester had voluntarily gone home. It was unclear, Falwell said, how many remained in off-campus housing.
The director of student health services, Dr. Thomas Eppes Jr., told Falwell that the school had "lost the ability" to control how many students would be infected should classes resume on campus.
"We've lost the ability to corral this thing," Eppes said he told Falwell, according to the Times.
But he stopped short of telling Falwell to send students home. "I just am not going to be so presumptuous as to say, 'This is what you should do and this is what you shouldn't do,'" Eppes said.
Falwell, a public ally of President Trump, has publicly derided concern over the coronavirus outbreak and criticized other universities that have sent students home or moved to online classes to avoid in-person gatherings.
He told the Times in an interview that the school would continue to notify its community of developments related to the coronavirus but did not indicate that the school would send students home.
"Liberty will be notifying the community as deemed appropriate and required by law," Falwell told the Times.
On Friday, he announced that students who wished to withdraw from classes for the semester would received a $1,000 credit towards next year's classes.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/29/falwell-liberty-university-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-152467
"Remember when people wanted to tar and feather folks? That's about the level it's at in the Lynchburg community right now," a former longtime Falwell associate told me over the phone. "You have 16,000 petri dishes he's inviting back to Lynchburg, who have gone out all over country for spring breakhe's inviting them back into our city, our community, knowing that at some point they're gonna have to interact with the public."
Throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia, efforts to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus have led colleges to upend their plans for the semester by moving classes online, canceling commencement ceremonies andcritically, from a public-health perspectivemoving students out of dorms. Virginia Tech is practically begging students to stay away, enticing them with cash rebates. The University of Virginia has shut down its dorm system, save for those few students "who have no other option."
Liberty University, meanwhile, has invited its students to return to the dorms, whatever their circumstances might be. Falwell has said this decision was in students' best intereststhat students would be better off if they returned to campus before the coronavirus spreadbut that suggestion has met with exasperation by public health experts, state and local officials, and many residents of Lynchburg.
Falwell is now denying he put students at risk and telling the NYT they need to retract their story. But 800 students have gone home, and Fallwell is offering a (paltry) $1000 tuition credit to students who don't want to stay. People in Lynchburg, VA, where Liberty U is based, are furious ( https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/29/falwell-liberty-university-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-152467 ) because Falwell has put the entire community at risk.
Here's The Hill's coverage:
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/490091-liberty-university-students-report-symptoms-that-suggest-coronavirus
The school's director of student health services told The New York Timesin an interview that nearly a dozen students had reported symptoms similar to those experienced in confirmed coronavirus cases, with three of those students later being sent to hospitals for testing. No cases of the virus have been confirmed on the school's campus.
Liberty was in the news this week after students began returning to the Virginia campus despite the increasing number of coronavirus cases across the nation.
Students returning to campus are now reportedly being directed to self-quarantine for two weeks, while Liberty's president, Jerry Falwell Jr., told the Times that around 800 of the 1,900 students who initially returned to on-campus housing for spring semester had voluntarily gone home. It was unclear, Falwell said, how many remained in off-campus housing.
The director of student health services, Dr. Thomas Eppes Jr., told Falwell that the school had "lost the ability" to control how many students would be infected should classes resume on campus.
"We've lost the ability to corral this thing," Eppes said he told Falwell, according to the Times.
But he stopped short of telling Falwell to send students home. "I just am not going to be so presumptuous as to say, 'This is what you should do and this is what you shouldn't do,'" Eppes said.
Falwell, a public ally of President Trump, has publicly derided concern over the coronavirus outbreak and criticized other universities that have sent students home or moved to online classes to avoid in-person gatherings.
He told the Times in an interview that the school would continue to notify its community of developments related to the coronavirus but did not indicate that the school would send students home.
"Liberty will be notifying the community as deemed appropriate and required by law," Falwell told the Times.
On Friday, he announced that students who wished to withdraw from classes for the semester would received a $1,000 credit towards next year's classes.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/29/falwell-liberty-university-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-152467
"Remember when people wanted to tar and feather folks? That's about the level it's at in the Lynchburg community right now," a former longtime Falwell associate told me over the phone. "You have 16,000 petri dishes he's inviting back to Lynchburg, who have gone out all over country for spring breakhe's inviting them back into our city, our community, knowing that at some point they're gonna have to interact with the public."
Throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia, efforts to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus have led colleges to upend their plans for the semester by moving classes online, canceling commencement ceremonies andcritically, from a public-health perspectivemoving students out of dorms. Virginia Tech is practically begging students to stay away, enticing them with cash rebates. The University of Virginia has shut down its dorm system, save for those few students "who have no other option."
Liberty University, meanwhile, has invited its students to return to the dorms, whatever their circumstances might be. Falwell has said this decision was in students' best intereststhat students would be better off if they returned to campus before the coronavirus spreadbut that suggestion has met with exasperation by public health experts, state and local officials, and many residents of Lynchburg.
