Arizona universities not pivoting for COVID yet

As the new, highly infectious Omicron variant of COVID-19 has begun to spread rapidly across the U.S., colleges and universities are pivoting to keep students safe as they prepare for the upcoming spring semester.

One by one, institutions for higher education are moving back to virtual instruction, albeit temporarily, or limiting the amount of people on campus as they return to school in January after the holidays.

Yale University announced Thursday it will delay the start of its spring semester by a week and classes will begin remotely before returning in-person by early February. Seven University of California campuses announced Monday they also begin online: UC Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and Riverside. Likewise, DePaul, Harvard and Stanford Universities won’t have in-person classes the first weeks of the semester.