Is a specific vaccine necessary to combat the omicron variant?
2:07
(CNN) -
Cornell University closed its Ithaca, New York campus, and went to the "red alert level" after what the school has described as a "rapid spread" of covid-19 among students.
According to Cornell's online covid control panel, as of this Tuesday afternoon there were 469 cases of infected students and an overall rate of positivity of 3.01% in the week of December 6 among the students examined.
Ómicron is spreading fast.
That is concerning even if it turns out to be mild.
President Martha Pollack said the university's COVID-19 lab team detected evidence of the omicron variant "in a significant number of positive samples from Monday's students."
As a result, all semester finals will be moved online, all activities and sports are canceled and libraries are closed, Pollack wrote in a letter to the student body published Tuesday.
Pollack stressed that the move to close the campus within days of the end of the semester is due to an abundance of caution.
The UK battles the omicron surge as infections double every two to three days and the first death from the variant is reported
"While I want to ensure that, to date, we have not seen serious illness in any of our infected students, we do have a role to play in reducing the spread of the disease in the wider community," Pollack said.
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Cornell University's last day of classes was December 7, and its final exam period is scheduled for December 11-18, according to its online academic calendar.
- CNN's Sarah Boxer contributed to this report.
Covid-19