Sunderland College coronavirus closure social media posts are a HOAX, college confirms

Today, Thursday, March 12, rumours began to circulate on social media that Sunderland College’s Bede Campus had closed due to the coronavirus outbreak – with the post coming from a fake account pretending to be the college.

Sunderland College has confirmed that online rumours are untrue after a post began to circulate on social media about being closed due to the coronavirus outbreak.

It comes after posts were shared on Facebook which said that Sunderland College’s Bede Campus had closed today because of the virus, which has now officially been upgraded to a pandemic by the World Health Organisation.

A College Spokesperson has confirmed that the campus was still open, saying: “The current messages distributed via social media are a hoax. The college is open and we have no confirmed cases of COVID-19 amongst staff or students. We are continually updating our own digital media channels, which parents and students should follow for updates and guidance.”

It comes after the number of confirmed cases in the UK have risen from 456 on Wednesday, March 11, to 590 today – the number of deaths from the virus has also risen to eight.

The UK Government is holding an emergency COBRA meeting today to discuss whether the UK will move from the ‘contain’ stage to the ‘delay’ stage – if the phase is changed, new advice will be issued on how to deal with the virus outbreak.

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