Stanford University is considering holding fall classes in outdoor tents to prevent the spread of the coronavirus
- The Stanford University administration is mulling options for reopening campus for the fall semester.
- One possibility is holding classed outside in a large tent, the student newspaper reported.
- Campus activity will resume in a "phased restart," President Marc Tessier-Lavigne told the paper.
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Stanford University likely won't make a decision about whether it will reopen this fall until June, but the administration has been considering all of its options for how to get the campus back up and running, The Stanford Daily reported.
One of those discussions has been around the possibility of holding classes outdoors under tents, in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
The idea would take advantage of northern California's favorable weather, Provost Persis Drell told the paper.
"Absolutely nothing is off the table," he said.
Universities around the country have closed their campuses and moved to remote learning due to the coronavirus.
While some regions are seeing the spread of the virus slow, there are concerns that there will be a resurgence in the summer and fall as social distancing measures are relaxed.
As of Friday, California had at least 50,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus and more than 2,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The communal nature of undergraduate living makes physical distancing a challenge, Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne said in a Zoom conversation attended by the student journalists.
Campus activities will have to resume in a "phased restart," he told the paper.