Ohio State extends coronavirus travel restriction to Italy, Iran

Lydia Weyrich
Sat, 29 Feb 2020 21:34:38 +0000
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Ohio State has updated its travel restrictions to include Italy and Iran. Credit: Amal Saeed | Photo Editor

Ohio State updated its coronavirus travel restrictions to include university-sponsored travel to Italy and Iran through April 20, 2020, according to a universitywide email.

According to Johns Hopkins University, there are 1,128 confirmed cases in Italy and 29 deaths, as of Saturday. In Iran, there are 593 confirmed cases and 43 deaths.?

The email also stated that student, faculty and staff personal travel to or from Italy and Iran is required to be reported to the university through April 20.?

The spread of the virus, now officially named COVID-19 by the World Health Organization, is still considered to be low risk in the United States, and there are no confirmed cases in Ohio, the email said.?

“We continue to monitor the guidelines and recommendations from local, state and federal health officials to protect the safety and well-being of our community,” the email reads.?

On Jan. 30, Ohio State announced that university-sponsored travel to mainland China was restricted until March 6; on Feb. 19, the university extended the travel restriction to April 20, according to universitywide emails from the respective dates.?

The university had previously extended the date of reporting personal travel to mainland China to April 20, according to a previous email.?

On Feb. 26, Ohio State stopped all university-sponsored faculty, staff and student travel to South Korea until April 20, and began requiring any personal travel to be reported until April 20 as well.?

Any Ohio State student, staff or faculty member who returned from China after 5 p.m. Feb. 2 is not permitted to attend class or any university-sponsored event for 14 days after leaving China, according to a previous email.?

The email also said students living in residence halls whose spring break plans may be affected by the travel restrictions had until Feb. 28 to contact University Housing if they were unable to make other housing arrangements.

According to the CDC website, the disease originated in Wuhan, China, and according to Johns Hopkins, there are 85,996 global cases as of Saturday. Of those, 68 are in the United States and there has been one death.

Of the 85,996 cases, 79,251 are in mainland China, and 2,835 of the Chinese cases have resulted in death, according to Johns Hopkins. There have been 2,941 total deaths — an increase from the 6,065 worldwide cases and 132 Chinese deaths since the Jan. 30 initial travel ban.