The University of Nebraska-Lincoln recalled four students studying abroad in South Korea this week after the Centers for Disease Control issued a recommendation to avoid all nonessential travel to the Asian country.
On Monday, the CDC and U.S. Department of State elevated a travel advisory to Level 3 following an outbreak of the novel coronavirus causing the COVID-19 respiratory illness in South Korea.
While the number of new cases in China has slowed this week, other countries — including South Korea — have seen increases in how many people have tested positive for the disease.
South Korea announced 505 new cases of the coronavirus on Thursday, bringing its total to 1,766 people — including a U.S. soldier — who have tested positive for the virus.
Globally, over the last two months, more than 80,000 people have been infected by the disease and at least 2,700 people have died.
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There are no known cases of the coronavirus in Nebraska, outside of the 15 individuals being monitored at the National Quarantine Center on the University of Nebraska Medical Center campus.
The alert earlier this week prompted UNL to follow university system policy to take steps to bring home students who are in the country. A fifth student who was preparing to leave for South Korea canceled their plans.
"The U.S. Department of State and the CDC have put a number of travel advisories or warnings in place due to the virus," UNL Chancellor Ronnie Green wrote in a campuswide email. "Based on these advisories, NU policy currently restricts faculty, staff, and student travel to mainland China and South Korea."
Earlier this year, UNL suspended all university-sponsored travel and study abroad trips to China — where the virus was initially discovered in the city of Wuhan — after the CDC issued a Level 3 warning on Jan. 6.
The NU policy Green referred to was an executive memorandum put into place by former NU President Hank Bounds in 2018 prohibiting travel to countries where Level 3 or Level 4 warnings by the CDC are in effect.
Green said UNL is also monitoring the conditions in several other locations, including: Italy, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.
"We have been in contact with any UNL students currently in these countries," he said.
At a news conference in the White House on Wednesday evening, President Donald Trump said U.S. schools should take steps to respond to the coronavirus, while he also sought to downplay the risk of an outbreak on American soil.
"I think schools should be preparing," Trump said. "Get ready just in case."
Top leaders across NU met earlier Wednesday after the CDC urged educators to start discussing contingency plans should students, faculty or staff on any of its campuses in Lincoln, Omaha or Kearney test positive for the virus, spokeswoman Melissa Lee said.
According to Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, American schools should consider closing, asking students to attend online courses or splitting classes into smaller groups.
Lee said NU administrators from business and finance, academic affairs and information technology discussed what moving courses online would entail and if the university had the capacity to make that switch.
NU also talked about how it would go about canceling events, closing residence halls or accommodating international students who couldn't go back to their home countries because of travel restrictions.
No plans have been finalized at NU at this time, however.
"We want to put together a plan first and figure out how we will communicate it and how it will be used," Lee said.
The CDC recommends people avoid contact with sick people, regularly wash their hands and seek medical advice if they believe they are getting sick and start showing symptoms like fever, cough and shortness of breath.
UNL, UNO or UNMC students who believe they are experiencing symptoms related to coronavirus are encouraged to contact their respective student health centers. The UNL health center number is 402-472-5000.