UC Davis extends remote 2022 start to four weeks due to COVID omicron surge
UC Davis will hold classes virtually for essentially all of January due to the omicron variant surge, extending what was originally announced as a one-week transition to four weeks of classes.
The university, as well as six other undergraduate UC campuses on the quarter system, began classes this week on a remote basis, a change announced in December due to surging COVID-19 cases.
UC Davis Chancellor Gary May in a Dec. 22 letter to the university said the campus would be remote from Jan. 3 to Jan. 7, giving campus community members time to “secure a negative test” before returning in person next Monday, Jan. 10.
“We had hoped that our award-winning COVID response program would allow us to resume in-person instruction on Monday,” May said in a statement and video announcement Thursday, “but based on what we’re seeing with positivity rates related to the omicron variant, as well as staffing and operational concerns, we have decided that it is most prudent to continue remote instruction for three more weeks of winter quarter, through Jan. 28.”
If the remote learning period is not extended again, students, staff and faculty would return to campus Jan. 31. May said he will provide his next update on the situation on Jan. 14.
May also discouraged students, faculty and staff members from traveling out of the region.
“It’s important to stay in the Davis area,” he said. “That includes students living on campus. We need to stabilize our community, and that means staying put so that we can reduce the risk of introducing new COVID cases.”
May noted that while the university and Davis community are seeing their highest case and positivity rates for COVID-19 ever recorded, those rates remain lower than in other parts of California.
Still, he said staff and faculty “are stretched thin” and “impacted by staff shortages in some crucial areas, and that is also affecting our decisions.”
“We have to remain flexible for a bit longer,” May said.
The other six UC campuses on the quarter system in December announced plans to delay an in-person return by two weeks — this week and next week — before returning Jan. 18, one day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
UC Merced and UC Berkeley are on the semester calendar, not slated to begin until Jan. 18. UC Merced plans to hold classes remotely for at least one week.
