Skip to Content

LOOKING AHEAD: What the weekend could bring with university students back

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

As the first week of classes comes to an end for University of Missouri students, there are 57 students with current active COVID-19 cases.

Scott Clardy, a spokesperson for the Columbia/Boone County health department, told ABC 17 in an interview Monday, he expects cases to increase due to the return of students.

"I'll be very surprised if we don't see our numbers go up this weekend even into next week," Clardy said.

Denne Eckel, the office Manager for Lakota Coffee Company, said she is optimistic things will pick up as students continue to come back to Columbia.

"I handle the ordering and we have been busy so I'm just hoping we can get back to normal," she said.

The Boone County health order was extended through Feb. 16 keeping the mask mandate, limited crowd sizes and early closing time for bars and restaurants.

Clardy said with these restrictions in place, the cases numbers might not spike as they did during the beginning of fall semester, hitting a high of 683 on Sept. 5.

"We saw what happened and that just led to more and more cases," he said.

The health department reported 146 new COVID-19 cases for Boone County on Thursday, which is the largest increase since Jan 7.

Article Topic Follows: News

Jump to comments ↓

Author Profile Photo

Zola Crowder

Zola Crowder joined the ABC 17 News team as a multimedia journalist in June 2020 after graduating from the University of Missouri with a broadcast journalism degree. Before reporting at ABC 17, Zola was a reporter at KOMU where she learned to cover politics, crime, education, economics and more.

BE PART OF THE CONVERSATION

ABC 17 News is committed to providing a forum for civil and constructive conversation.

Please keep your comments respectful and relevant. You can review our Community Guidelines by clicking here

If you would like to share a story idea, please submit it here.

Skip to content