U-M announces on-campus cancellations, athletics limitations in response to coronavirus

Michigan president Dr. Mark Schlissel made a massive announcement on Wednesday afternoon regarding all university-related activities in response to the coronavirus outbreak currently taking place worldwide. U-M is cancelling classes the rest of the week and said that they will resume in an “alternative format” through the end of the winter semester.

Conversely, all Michigan events — hosted by U-M or otherwise — on campuses are canceled if they would convene 100 or more people. This runs from March 12 through at least April 21. This includes Michigan Athletics events, which will be limiting spectators to parents and media.

Here is that snippet of the statement from U-M:

We are canceling all U-M events and events organized by others on our campuses that would convene 100 people or more from Thursday, March 12 until at least April 21.

This cancellation includes Honors Convocation on March 15. Organizers of other large events may seek to conduct their event virtually. We ask organizers to inform their audiences and participants of changes as soon as possible. The University will endeavor to reschedule any affected third-party events as practical. Individual units may change smaller events at their discretion, and all may consider virtual options.

Michigan Athletics is working to limit spectators at its on-campus competitions to parents and media to avoid high-density audiences. We encourage students to limit large social gatherings.

We are continuing to monitor the impact of the virus and will provide updates on major end-of-semester events, including commencements, when more information is available.

Michigan Athletics has not made any official statements on how they will proceed, but examples of events coming are baseball and softball’s home openers this weekend, as well as the spring game and other events on campus the weekend of April 18.

As this posting was put together, the NCAA also officially announced that the entire men’s and women’s basketball tournaments will be played without fans in attendance. As of now, the Big Ten plans to proceed as planned with the conference tournament in Indianapolis.

This story is developing.