Cornell, Princeton and NYU are among universities in the United States to move their final examinations online.
Cornell University announced that final exams will be taken online after detecting suspected cases of the new omicron variant amid a spike in COVID-19 cases among students.
At the upstate New York university, 272 students tested positive for the virus on Monday alone, the Associated Press reported.
Cornell's COVID-19 dashboard reported 903 new student cases in the past week, more than 700 of them detected since Saturday during a post-Thanksgiving surge among vaccinated students at the Ivy League campus.
Cornell’s testing identified a substantial number of samples that contained indicators of the omicron variant, officials said. The university is awaiting confirmation from a lab.
“Cornell’s extensive surveillance testing (Monday) uncovered the likely early and rapid spread of the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 among our student population,” Joel Malina, vice president for university relations, said in a statement. “While preliminary, initial screening results indicate that the variant now accounts for a very high percentage of our positive Covid-19 cases.”
With only days remaining in the semester, Cornell President Martha Pollack moved the campus to high-alert status in an attempt to limit spread. Libraries and fitness centers were closed, sports were canceled, and students were encouraged to remain in Ithaca until receiving a negative COVID-19 test.
The campus is scheduled to close for winter break at the end of the week.
Cornell has mandated regular surveillance testing for unvaccinated students since the start of the academic year, and weekly testing for vaccinated students
Princeton University in New Jersey also moved final exams online after the school saw an increase in COVID-19 cases among undergraduates during the last 24 hours, including suspected cases of the omicron variant, Bloomberg reported. Princeton is also canceling or postponing all indoor gatherings with food, and those where face coverings can’t be worn. It advised students to leave “at their earliest convenience.”
“We hope to avoid letting the final exam schedule interfere with students’ travel home for winter break,” Jill Dolan, dean of the college, and W. Rochelle Calhoun, Princeton’s vice president for campus life, wrote to students Tuesday night. “We certainly don’t want you remaining on campus in required isolation through the holidays.”
The omicron variant, first found in Botswana and South Africa in November, has been detected in relatively small numbers in the United States so far, but has a 13% prevalence in New York and New Jersey.
Omicron appears to cause less severe illness than earlier variants of the coronavirus but is more resistant to the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine widely used in South Africa, according to a major study of the variant in that country, where booster shots are not yet available.
Having a booster shot is the best protection against the variant, Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
The CDC on its website "recommends that everyone ages 18 years and older should get a booster shot at least two months after their initial J&J/Janssen vaccine or six months after completing their primary COVID-19 vaccination series of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna."
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