University Tells Professors to Stop Sending Students for Coronavirus Tests Over Coughing

University Tells Professors to Stop Sending Students for Coronavirus Tests Over Coughing
Chinese students wear masks as they wait to take a train after Chinese New Year break in Beijing, China, on Jan. 31, 2020. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
Bill Pan
Bill Pan
Reporter
|Updated:

After receiving complaints, the University of Florida (UF) has told its faculty members that they should not exclude students who may be visibly sick from class due to fears of the new coronavirus.

There has been no confirmed case of the coronavirus, called COVID-19, on the UF campus that hosts some 6,000 international students, but at least one professor reportedly asked coughing and sniffing students to leave class and be tested for the virus, reflecting anxieties about the disease’s spread amid Florida’s flu season.