UT tops list for most COVID-19 cases on a college campus

No parties will be allowed when University of Texas at Austin students return for the fall, campus officials warned Friday.

In an email sent to students Friday afternoon, Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Soncia Reagins-Lilly encouraged students to follow the city of Austin’s guidance to stay home and the state’s orders to wear a mask in public. Parties, she added, will not be permitted.

“While the orders and guidelines continue to evolve, parties (whether on or off campus) put peoples’ health and safety at risk and raise anxiety levels,” she said in the email.

The fall semester begins Aug. 26, with students taking some inperson and some online classes. It’s not clear how the university expects to enforce the no party rule in off-campus settings, but the city of Austin has prohibited gatherings of more than 10 people. According to UT’s student conduct rules, those who deliberately engage in behavior that threatens the health and safety of students, faculty, staff and visitors will be subject to disciplinary action.

Of more than 6,600 counted cases of COVID-19 on college campuses around the country, the flagship for the UT System came in at No. 1 with 449 cases, according to the New York Times. UT’s digital dashboard, which records the number of COVID-19 cases within its community on its website, cites a total of 459 cases as of Thursday evening, with 287 students and 172 faculty positive since March 1.

Texas A&M University came in fourth place with 302 cases and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas at sixth, with more than 200 cases.

UT-Rio Grande Valley reportedly had 95 cases, Sam Houston State University 88 cases, and the University of Houston-Downtown had 61, followed immediately by Rice

University, which had 59 cases, according to the Times’ data.

The Times report, updated Wednesday, surveyed nearly 1,000 U.S. colleges, including every public four-year college, and private institutions that compete in Division I sports or are research universities. The article stated that the report is likely an under-count as some universities refused to respond to certain questions, citing privacy concerns, and some did not respond at all.