EAST LANSING, Mich. – There have been 124 coronavirus (COVID-19) cases confirmed at Michigan State University in East Lansing. That includes students with symptoms, self-reported cases and university employees.
The Ingham County Health Director is threatening stricter measures. MSU undergraduate students are already taking their classes online.
READ: Undergraduate classes at Michigan State University will be taught remotely this fall
“This increase in positive cases among students is disappointing, but not unexpected,” said President Samuel L. Stanley Jr., M.D. "As students return to off-campus housing, some are attending large gatherings where people are in close contact without an appropriate face covering. This is the easiest and fastest way for the coronavirus to spread.
Senior Dhaval Gandi of Canton said online classes just moved the problem a couple of blocks.
“Housing filled up and so instead of having the problems that were going to happen on campus, they’re just happening just across Grand River,” Gandi said.
Junior Tyler Jabara noted the evidence of that kind of partying isn’t hard to find.
“For the most party it has been social gatherings when you drive around you see people on their front lawns kind of partying you know, right, not huge gatherings,” Jabara said.
Junior Micaela Curtin returned to her sorority because she wanted something resembling normal.
“It’s scary, but I knew it would happen because we’re moving in, seeing friends again, like, that makes sense. Yeah, people have to be smarter,” she said.
University officials said it wasn’t any big party or event that sparked the outbreak.
READ: 124 Michigan State University students test positive for COVID-19