CHAMPAIGN & URBANA, Ill. (WAND) - Health and school officials are urging University of Illinois Greek students to not attend events for Greek Reunion Weekend, scheduled from Friday through Sunday. The warnings came as Champaign County reached 1,000 total COVID-19 cases on Friday.
"You need to be avoiding large gatherings and large crowds, and adhering to the CDC guidelines," said Danita Young, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
While Greek Reunion Weekend is not sanctioned by the university, it's a long-standing tradition for UIUC fraternity and sorority students in mid-summer.
"The origin is really about cleaning their houses, preparing their houses, getting prepared for upcoming recruitment in the fall," Young said. "They worked really hard during the day and then they would go out and socialize."
No official schedule appears to have been publicly released for this year's event, but university officials say it had been planned to take place this weekend.
"I do not have any information as to whether events are still occurring or if they've been canceled or not," Young said. "But they may be hosting them virtually, I don't know."
To prevent against the possibility or large crowds gathering for the event, University of Illinois Police say they'll be doing extra patrols this weekend. And some popular Campustown bars like Kam's, Red Lion and Joe's Brewery are even closing for the weekend.
"We understand that in previous years, this has been a big event, and in normal times it would have been okay to do this," said Awais Vaid, Deputy Administrator, Champaign-Urbana Health District. "But we are not living in normal times right now."
