COVID on Campus: Unprecedented Challenges, Mixed Results COVID on Campus: Unprecedented Challenges, Mixed Results Experts Say Untold Thousands of COVID-19 Cases Went Undetected Share this story Published January 29th, 2021 at 6:00 AM Above image credit: Six Ionic-style columns originally supported the University of Missouri-Columbia's first campus building — Academic Hall. (Emily Wolf | Flatland) In April in the early weeks of the pandemic, as University of Missouri President Mun Choi evaluated whether his school should come back in the fall, he predicted that 20 students on his campus would need to be sequestered with COVID-19 if they came back for in-person classes. Upon reopening in August, Missouri had isolation and quarantine housing available for more than 200 students. By Thanksgiving, the school had more than 2,300 reported cases overall.