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WASHINGTON, Aug. 19-- Students are returning to university campuses across the United States amid an increase in new COVID-19 cases, adding challenges to the country's control of the widely spread virus. Whether and how to reopen schools in the United States this fall has become a hotly-debated issue in recent weeks. While some politicians have been pushing for in-school learning as soon as possible, many families are hesitant to send their children back due to safety concerns. Several universities have already detected new COVID-19 cases. Earlier this week, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one of the largest schools in the country to bring students back to campus and attempt in-person teaching, announced it will suspend in-person instruction for undergraduates in a dramatic turnaround just a week after classes began. The University of Notre Dame is also shifting to online classes after reporting a rise in infections. "Our contact tracing analysis indicates that most infections are coming from off-campus gatherings. Students infected at those gatherings passed it on to others who in turn passed the virus on to a further group, resulting in the positive cases we have seen," said the university's president John Jenkins. Los Angeles Unified, the second-largest school district in the nation, plans to periodically test hundreds of thousands of students and 75,000 employees for the virus to gain clarity on when in-person instruction can resume safely. | 
