by Paul Bedard | May 11, 2020

Despite some 750 media reports that Liberty University was writing COVID-19 death sentences for some 1,100 students returning after spring break, the Virginia Christian college recorded no cases with students on campus and is now holding itself up as the “model” to follow in the fall.

After the students left for home at the end of the college school year last week, President Jerry Falwell Jr. said, “We finished this year strong — maybe even stronger than ever before because of the hard work of our administration, faculty, staff, and students who pushed through the challenges that this pandemic caused and never quit safely serving our students.”

He added: “Liberty University created the model that other universities should follow for pandemics by protecting its students, faculty, and staff from COVID cases in the local community. We are thankful to God that nobody who lived in a campus residence hall or who worked in a campus office tested positive for the virus.”

The campus's clean bill of health, ignored by the media after hyping the potential for infection, wasn’t a surprise for Falwell and his team.

“It shows how one-sided the American media has become, that they sound the alarm on the false narrative that there are COVID-19 cases at Liberty, and then when they find out that there were none, total silence,” Falwell told Secrets Monday.

While some other schools locked the doors to dorms after spring break and as the pandemic spread, Falwell said he let 1,500 students return to dorms under strict rules of social distancing. Most returned because they had elderly parents at home they wanted to keep safe, or they didn’t have internet, or they were international students.

They learned online, and eagerly, as the school logged its 100,000th “distance” student. They ordered out as the school restaurants turned to takeout meals.

Still, some, especially in the media, raised alarms that little was being done to prevent infection.

But the state health department conducted two surprise inspections and found everything in order and in compliance with Gov. Ralph Northam’s rules. “All operations appeared to be in compliance with the governor’s emergency order,” said Jim Bowles, a state health manager before critical stories in the New York Times and ProPublica appeared.

Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, reopened the school's campus last week. By Friday, nearly a dozen Liberty students were sick with symptoms that suggest Covid-19. https://t.co/dmgBQ27pdZ

— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) March 29, 2020
So alarmed, the New York Times tweeted, “Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, reopened the school's campus last week. By Friday, nearly a dozen Liberty students were sick with symptoms that suggest Covid-19.”

But there was no there there, and colleges that also let some students return to dorms were ignored by the critical media that ripped Liberty.

Another illustration of why the lying @nytimes and other mainstream #FakeNews publications are failing financially and have lost the public’s trust. ZERO COVID cases on campus @LibertyU and the campus just closed for the semester @NYTLiz ! https://t.co/bY8oXqKsl4

— Jerry Falwell (@JerryFalwellJr) May 7, 2020

Falwell later told Secrets of his plans to sue those two, the New York Times and ProPublica. “We’re an easy target, we’re conservative. But it’s sad that they would use something as grave as the virus that’s killing people to push their political agenda, and we decided that enough is enough,” he said.

Now, as he looks to reopening the school for classes in the fall, Falwell said that Liberty should be the model for others.

He credited the small-town environment of Liberty, based in Lynchburg, Virginia. He also said that students who returned were spread out around campus and that large academic buildings were kept open for students to study in at a big social distance.

Falwell also said that being in the distance-learning business for years helped to make learning online easy while some bigger schools and public education systems, notably in northern Virginia's Fairfax County, fumbled with the process.

Asked about beating back the criticism of his plan made as the virus crisis was unfolding, Falwell said, “It’s good to say, ‘I told you so.’”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washi...-follow-falwell