The University of Alabama reported more than 531 positive coronavirus tests one week after it reopened to students. Although the spike may indicate the virus’ tendency to spread in densely populated communities, experts claim that young people are unlikely to face serious health repercussions after contracting the virus.

According to a report by CBS News, the University of Alabama has reported more than 531 positive coronavirus tests across its several campuses. Now, university officials are scrambling to prevent further spreading.

University of Alabama President Stuart Bell said during a conference that the spike in the number of potential cases on campus is “unacceptable.” Bell suggested that he would shut down the campus if cases continued to rise.

“Although our initial re-entry test was encouraging, the rise in COVID cases that we’ve seen in recent days is unacceptable and if unchecked threatens our ability to complete the semester on campus,”  Bell said.

In response to the development, the mayor of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, announced that all bars will be closed for the next two weeks to mitigate the spread. Last Friday, the university announced that students will not be permitted to gather outside of the classroom for the next two weeks.

Statistics suggest that young people are unlikely to face serious health ramifications if they contract the virus.

Dr. Anthony Fauci criticized young people in July, chiding them for not following guidelines to fight the Chinese virus. According to Fauci, young people are less concerned about coronavirus because they usually have mild symptoms, but can spread it to at-risk individuals. He told Marketwatch, “You don’t realize, probably innocently, that you are inadvertently propagating the outbreak. You are becoming part of the problem because, even if you get infected without any symptoms, it is likely that you are going to infect someone else.”

“The percentage of symptomatic cases requiring hospitalisation is estimated to be 0.1% for children aged 0 to 9 and 0.3% among those aged 10 to 19, compared to a hospitalisation rate of over 4% in the UK for the general population,” Phil Kerpen tweeted this week. “Most of these children make a rapid recovery.”

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