Queen’s students ask for online exams as Omicron suspected among school community

With suspected cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 linked to Queen's University, many students are pushing the school to move exams online.

With the announcement of the Omicron variant in the Kingston region, Queen’s University says it’s suspected that the variant has found its way into the school community.

“The emergence of the Omicron COVID-19 variant in the Kingston region, including a number of suspected cases within the Queen’s community, requires the university to adjust our campus operations,” a statement from Queen’s said Thursday.

Despite this announcement, Queen’s promised Thursday to go ahead with in-person exams.

With this news, and the skyrocketing cases of COVID-19 in the Kingston community, many Queen’s students have been protesting the idea of in-person examinations.

A petition signed by nearly 4,000 people is calling for Queen’s University to move exams online, while an open letter to Queen’s has issued a scathing critique of the decision to keep the exams in-person.

“Seemingly deaf to the calls from public health officials for increased caution as case counts explode across the province, Queen’s University (Queen’s) has made the outrageous decision to proceed with in-person exams this holiday season, forcing students to sit in crowded gymnasiums,” said Abigail McLean, who wrote the letter.

Both the petition and the letter reference a recent outbreak linked to Queen’s University’s varsity sports, which was confirmed Wednesday. The outbreak was not related to an on-campus event or a sports event, the school said, and all varsity sports team members are vaccinated.

Neither the health unit nor Queen’s has identified how many cases are associated with this outbreak, nor have they commented on whether the Omicron case or the region’s suspected new variant cases are linked to this outbreak.