All Moberly Area Community College campuses will suspend in-person classes until next week due to concerns over COVID-19, or coronavirus, according to an update on the college’s website. Despite the college’s decision to suspend in-person classes, there are no known cases of the virus on any campuses.

“It just seems like this is the direction that things are moving in,” said MACC President Jeff Lashley. “While we still have no confirmed cases on any of our campus or the communities we’re in, social distancing seems to be the primary thing we’re being asked to do.”

All in-person courses will be suspended next week. The college’s spring break from March 26-29 will go on as scheduled, but after the break, all in-seat courses will be taught online through April 6. An announcement will be made the week of March 30 whether the courses will be continued online for the remainder of the semester.

Campuses will remain open next week and and faculty, staff and administration will still report to work in-person. Next week will be used to get faculty who normally teach in-person classes up to speed on online teaching, Lashley said.

“Our goal next week is to get ourselves prepared to finish the rest of the semester online if we need to,” he said. “At some point we hope that things change to a degree to where we’ll be able to go back to normal. We’ll just have to assess that as we go.”

Campus events and planned travel are being evaluated by college administration. Residence halls will remain open while in-person classes are suspended.