BOISE, Idaho — Boise State University is making preparations in anticipation of the coronavirus possibly showing up on BSU's campus.
On Friday, Boise State will perform a drill where they will try to convert all their classes into an online format.
“We think we have the infrastructure, we know we have the software that can help," said Greg Hahn of Boise State University. “Now it is about figuring out what did we not anticipate, I mean that is what we are kind of hoping to get out of Friday."
Boise State joins several other colleges in getting ready for COVID-19 which has been announced as a global pandemic by the World Health Organization.
“It starts to get a little serious and now over 40 or 50 universities are doing this and it's growing every day," said Hahn. "We don’t have plans to start this on a single day it could happen if things change we are just watching what evolves and doing what we can to be ready for it.”
Making this transition will certainly have its challenges especially for classes where students build things and hands-on types of learning including labs.
"Three of my five classes are lab classes where attendance in the buildings are really necessary," said Jack Carr a Boise State Sophomore majoring in Computer Science. "I think everyone is confused."
Carr said he expects the campus to will shut down classroom learning at some point because of the coronavirus.
“It’s most likely that we are going to end the semester early or go online," said Carr. "I don’t think any of us wants that.”
Carr told us he's not that scared of coronavirus, but he understands why Boise State is making emergency preparations.
“Most of us our young and the majority of us are healthy, but it is scary seeing what it is doing to the country," said Carr.
Boise State started these preparations on Monday, sent out the advisory on Tuesday and will have the drill on Friday simulating a quick response time in case future actions are required.
There are still zero confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Idaho and at this point there have been 69 people tested.
