Over two dozen University of Texas students who were on a chartered 70-person flight to Cabo San Lucas last month have tested positive for coronavirus, according to the University of Texas.
The students embarked on the trip on March 14 and returned the following week. Those who tested positive have isolated themselves while recovering, and the others are in quarantine while undergoing monitoring and testing, the Austin-American Statesman reported. Four of the positive cases were asymptomatic.
Videos by VICE
The spring breakers were reportedly on a trip organized by a Nevada-based company called JusCollege, which discouraged students from canceling by telling them Mexico had very few cases, even after the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic. The company also reportedly refused to change its refund policy after the pandemic hit.
“It’s the most expensive trip I’ve personally ever gone on,” a University of Texas sophomore who went on the trip told KVUE. “It would have made [it] easier had they just simply offered to refund us and done the right thing.”
In a March 25 statement, the company said it planned to “have clear refund and credit options within 14 days.”
Travis County, home to Austin and the University of Texas, has so far seen 244 confirmed positive coronavirus cases and two deaths, according to county data. Nearly half of all confirmed positive cases in the county are in people between the ages of 20 and 39.
Videos of college kids on break openly flouting social distancing measures went viral last month, and before long, colleges began reporting that some of their returning students were testing positive for the coronavirus.
On March 20, the University of Tampa said five of its students tested positive after a spring break trip and that a sixth tested positive after traveling internationally. The University of Wisconsin-Madison, meanwhile, said earlier this week that “multiple” students had tested positive after a spring break trip to Nashville and Gulf Shores, Alabama.
Cover: A woman has her temperature taken at a control point on a covered footbridge to be screened for symptoms before entering the Dell Deton Medical Center at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, Wednesday, March 25, 2020. Austin is under Stay-at-Home orders to help battle the effects of COVID-19. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
