A CONFIRMED coronavirus case has been recorded at Charles Sturt University with the person now in self-isolation.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
CSU vice chancellor Professor Andrew Vann has confirmed that a student returned from Italy and went straight into self-isolation several weeks ago and was subsequently a confirmed case.
No contact was made on campus and there has been no impact to university operations. CSU did not confirm which campus the student attends.
"We have 42, 000 students and it is likely more cases will be confirmed over time. We will publish them when we need to alert students or the community for contact tracing," Mr Vann said.
"There's also a few people who have been in contact with cases and some are getting tested."
Around 10,000 of CSU's enrolled students study on campus across the university's six campuses, however, all studies are now being moved online in an effort to contain the spread of COVID-19.
Prof Vann said plans to provide an ongoing education for all students during the coronavirus pandemic started months ago.
"We've been doing preparations for this critical incident since January," he said.
"We have to hope that what this does is get the rate of [COVID-19] spread steady."
CSU may already specialise in offering online courses, but Prof Vann said it had still been a big effort to move all courses online.
"We're running our final on-campus classes this week, but after that we'll be online for the rest of the semester," he said.
"So many of our students are in the online mode already so it's been easy for us to adapt."
Prof Vann said some lecturers are at home streaming classes to students, while others are still working from CSU campuses.
Finer details surrounding practical classes and tests was yet to be clarified.
"We've also got a lot of our hands-on aspects like nursing or dentistry so we'll have to work out how we catch that up," Prof. Vann said.
"We'll do everything we can to support them."
All gyms at CSU campuses are now closed and cafes will only serve takeaway food.
On campus libraries and learning commons will remain open with students asked to observe social distancing measures.
We have removed our paywall from our stories about the coronavirus. This is a rapidly changing situation and we want to make sure our readers are as informed as possible. If you would like to support our journalists you can subscribe here.
