Skip to main content Currently Reading The University of Maryland at College Park and the University of Virginia's spike in cases has towns bracing for spread Lauren Lumpkin and Nick Anderson, The Washington Post Feb. 22, 2021 FacebookTwitterEmail A statue of Thomas Jefferson stands in front of the Rotunda at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.Washington Post photo by John McDonnell. One campus, in Maryland, temporarily canceled in-person classes after coronavirus infections surged past 60 cases two days in a row. The other, in Virginia, kept classrooms open even after it logged 229 cases in a single day. The region's flagship universities - the University of Maryland at College Park and the University of Virginia - have tracked an alarming uptick in the number of viral cases on campus. And each school has taken a different approach to curbing the spread, illustrating the tensions and uncertainty of trying to operate major research universities in the pandemic and preserve public health.