Pitt, Penn State tell students, employees to cancel travel plans to China amid coronavirus outbreak

The University of Pittsburgh on Friday instructed students, faculty and staff headed to China in the coming weeks to cancel those plans, given U.S. State Department advice on the deadly coronavirus outbreak that has claimed more than 200 lives in that country.

Penn State University, meanwhile, says it issued a similar advisory to its campuses, recommending students and employees headed to that country rethink their plans.

At Pitt, the “Do Not Travel” advisory was posted to an alert page on Pitt’s website around midday. It also followed a decision by the World Health Organization to classify the novel coronavirus outbreak — first identified in Wuhan, China — as a public health emergency.

“Individuals from the University of Pittsburgh who are slated to visit China in the coming weeks should work to cancel these plans. Our Pitt global operations team is standing by, ready to offer support as needed,” Pitt said on its alert page.

The message from Ian McLaughlin, global operations support manager, also noted the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a warning for all of China.

“We have canceled or changed the venue for all of our spring and spring break programming in China,” Pitt spokesman Kevin

Zwick said.

Pitt is Western Pennsylvania’s largest university. Like other major research universities, as well as other smaller public and private campuses, its students and faculty travel between both countries for undergraduate and graduate scholarship and research.

In recent days, there has been escalating concern about the outbreak — with schools including Pitt and Carnegie Mellon

University issuing campus updates as federal health officials offered new information. Increasingly, travel to and from the country has become complicated.

Delta, United and American Airlines have suspended all flights from the U.S. to China. Other airlines, including British Airways, have adjusted flight plans. The crisis is being felt economically, too, from factories reducing production in that country to drops in the stock market.

As of late Thursday, well over 9,000 cases had been reported, almost all of them in China. A number of other countries, including the U.S., have reported one or more cases.

Penn State said it “is urging faculty and staff to reconsider their travel to the country until the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, ‘2019-nCoV,’ is contained,” according to a statement on Thursday.

It added: “Any student wishing to pursue university-affiliated travel to China will need to submit a restricted travel petition to be reviewed for possible approval by the International Restricted Travel Committee

and the provost. Students may contact the Global Safety Office for more information.”

Penn State recommended that students and employees monitor federal advisories.

“We have a small number of faculty and staff travelers currently in China, but there are no records for upcoming faculty or staff travel to China through the end of May,” said Joe Thurston, global safety analyst with Penn State Global Programs. “Likewise, we have no student programming in China at this time and no upcoming student travel records to the country through the end of May.”

Damon Sims, Penn State vice president for student affairs, sent a note to Chinese students studying at Penn State offering help with any academic or financial issues they may face given the crisis in their country.

In Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon has been updating its campus on the latest information, too. Earlier this week, it referenced federal guidance at the time specifying that unnecessary travel to China be avoided.

In a message sent to campus Friday, Duquesne University officials said they are continuing to monitor the situation and offered informational links to various health agencies.

Gabriel Welsch, a Duquesne spokesman, said the school knows of no student travel to or from China during the semester, nor is it aware of any planned faculty trips there in the short term.

Officials on all four campuses have noted there are no reported cases on their campuses, in Pittsburgh and in Pennsylvania.