“Given this much uncertainty about how it spreads and how virulent it is, and given questions about the availability of health care in affected regions, this seems cautious but appropriate,” said David Ropeik, director of risk communication at the Harvard School of Public Health’s Center for Risk Analysis.
“We may look back, and with the clarity of hindsight think its is an overreaction, but its still too uncertain to know,” Ropeik said.
A message posted on the University’s web site also strongly advised against personal trips to SARS-affected countries, and stated that students or employees who still must travel to these countries are requested to confer with their respective deans, and consult University Health Services (UHS) before and after their trips.
Those returning from affected areas may also be asked to stay home for a 10-day period before returning to campus and class to ensure they exhibit no symptoms of the disease, Rosenthal said.
The message also stated that the University will not “facilitate or otherwise endorse travel to affected areas.”
Wrinn clarified that the University is not directly prohibiting schools from awarding class credit to students who still decide to travel to SARS-affected areas, but is leaving the decision up to the individual faculties.
“The University doesn’t give grades, it doesn’t give credit for courses,” Wrinn said.
But students in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences cannot receive credit for study in countries covered by the advisory, Leslie Hill, assistant director of study and work abroad at the Office of International Programs said Monday.
The moratorium comes as students at the College are planning trips for this summer and next year to study and perform thesis research in China and other affected countries.
At least four students in the East Asian Studies Department will have to change the foci of their thesis because they will not be able to conduct planned research abroad this summer, said Claudine C. Stuchell ’04, who was planning to conduct thesis research in the interior of China during the vacation.
“I can’t fund myself, so I can’t go to China,” Stuchell said. “I wish they weren’t doing such a blanket policy for the whole country, that it was on a more case-by-case basis.”
The change in policy may also affect those planning to spend next year studying in China, though most are keeping their plans given the fact that the policy may change before the fall.
“Right now, I’m planning on...being in Beijing [next year], but I recognize these plans are tentative,” said Victor D. Ban ’04, who received a fellowship from Harvard’s Yenching Institute to study in China for a year.
“I will be prepared to call plans off in August,” he added.
Carly L. Cohen ’05, who also received a Yenching fellowship said she was still planning to go to China next year, but that she will not be able to go if the school revokes her grant.
According to Rosenthal, Harvard is not alone in its restriction of travel to SARS-affected countries. Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and Yale all have similar moratoriums in effect, he said.
—Staff writer Katharine A. Kaplan can be reached at kkaplan@fas.harvard.edu.