CUNY Students Abroad Summoned Home As Coronavirus Hits NYC

NEW YORK CITY — City and State University of New York students studying abroad in areas at higher risk for coronavirus are being summoned home, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced.

About 300 CUNY and SUNY students studying abroad in China, Iran, Italy, Japan and South Korea will return to New York, Cuomo said at a press conference Wednesday morning.

"On all of this the context is what is most important," Cuomo said. "Once you accept the facts, there is no reason to be frightened."

The students will take a charted plane to Stewart Airport in upstate New York then face a 14-day quarantine in dormitories in Long Island, Utica and Westchester, officials said.

The decision was made based on recommendations from the New York State Department of Health, according to the governor's office.

CUNY issued a notice Wednesday morning — as a student's COVID-19 diagnosis spurred Yeshiva University to close its Washington Heights campus — alerting students to the change in policy.

"The New York cases have raised our level of concern, and we are stepping up our preparations for the possibility of our campuses and neighborhoods being impacted by the virus," CUNY officials said.

"Please be assured that CUNY is taking this potential threat very seriously, and actively preparing to ensure the safety of students, faculty and staff, along with the continuity of our operations across a range of scenarios."

There are no known coronavirus cases among the CUNY community, school officials said Wednesday.