COVID-19 and Study Abroad

By: Kinley DuRant and Nate Unger

What to know:

COVID-19, more popularly known as the Coronavirus, has been taking a world tour, since its recent outbreak in Wuhan, China.  Ranging from locations is Europe and even the United States. The messages about coronavirus through the use of social media is being taken in a variety of different directions. One big problem with the virus’ global spread, however, is among college students. The virus now poses danger to the thousands of American University students who are studying abroad in foreign countries in Latin America, Europe, and Asia.

The Center for Disease Control has advised colleges and universities to consider postponing or even cancelling upcoming student foreign exchange programs for the foreseeable future. They have issued a Level 3 warning, stating on their website that “travelers avoid all nonessential travel to Italy.” Universities are not hesitating to take action, canceling all current study abroad programs and many summer programs. Colleges like Auburn, Washington University in St. Louis, Rutgers, and even here at Clemson are among dozens of colleges to take efforts to keep their students’ on the mainland.

Here are some of the facts:

• Tweets containing the term “coronavirus” in the past week (February 25^th-March 3^rd), there have been a whopping 28.5 million tweets,
  • spanning the world from the US to Spain and Venezuela, to Nigeria
• Narrowing it down to look at a college perspective: there have been 4.8k Tweets from February 25^th-March 3^rd
  • key words such as
    • “study abroad & covid”
    • “study abroad & cancel”
    • “study abroad & coronavirus”
  • Many of these tweets have been due to universities announcing the cancellations and students replying to it with their dismay, along with students voicing their opinions about future abroad programs.
    • As expected, sentiment is trending towards mostly negative, with 68.8% of all tweets being negative and just 31.2% being positive.

In terms of societal effects, the US is really getting pummeled. The coronavirus has been an economical disaster. Thousands of flights are being canceled, losing millions of dollars for the airline industry, as well as making a dent in the travel and tourism industry. Travel screenings for international travel has become so extensive, with TSA and the government doing their best to ensure that anyone who has been in China recently, been overseas in areas that have been affected. The market has also tanked in the weeks since the coronavirus began to spread. The stock market has become volatile, and with a large portion of the global economy coming from China, the global economy is expected to slow down. On March 3, 2020, the Federal Reserve issued an emergency interest cut rate in an attempt to combat effects of the outbreak, the first time this has happened since the Great Recession in 2008.

As for us here at Clemson University, we need to be on watch. With our Spring Break coming up in just under two weeks, thousands of students are going to be traveling across the country, so they need to be on high alert as they travel. As for study abroad programs, Clemson announced Monday, March 2^nd that all students currently overseas were required to return to campus and all programs were effectively suspended. According to WYFF 4 News, this decision will affect 385 students in 6 countries abroad, along with the 100 or so called back from Italy a few days prior. Associate Vice President of Communication for the university, Joe Gailbreath, stated that an academic advisor would be assigned to each returning student. This has some ripple effects for the university. It may cause panic amongst students at Clemson with those overseas returning to campus, fearing that they may potentially bring back the virus. The university may have to pay for screening and travel to arrange for the students’ prompt return. It also costs the university money in terms of the fact that these students are no longer paying for their programs abroad, as they will almost definitely be refunded in some sort of way. As of this moment (3/3/2020), there have been no recorded cases here at Clemson, but officials are closely monitoring the ordeal.