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Emails show faculty, health officials expressed concern over UNC-Chapel Hill's COVID-19 plan before August reopening - ABC11 Raleigh-Durham <br />https://abc11.com/unc-covid-nc-coronavirus/7029408/[10/19/20, 3:46:34 PM] <br />Team's request to clarify who had the authority to <br />make the final decision to bring students back to <br />campus. <br />"The Board of Governors did not take action to <br />mandate reopening of UNC campuses for the fall <br />semester nor overrule any campus reopening <br />decisions," a spokesperson for the UNC system wrote <br />in an email. <br />The spokesperson also pointed to a statement <br />previously made by Board of Governors Chair Randy <br />Ramsey: "In a large and diverse university system like <br />ours, there is a great deal of shared responsibility, <br />consultation, and collaboration. Since President Hans <br />came on board on August 1st, he has had the support <br />of our board and the full authority to work with our <br />chancellors to make the decisions to modify or adapt <br />operations." <br />As the month progressed, emails show campus leaders <br />continued to move forward with reopening plans by <br />communicating with county health officials on contract <br />tracing efforts and testing capacity. <br />"The numbers were going up all over the country. That <br />was not the assumption when the roadmap came out <br />in May so the assumptions it was based on were <br />changing and so that was a big concerns for the <br />faculty," Chapman said. <br />In July, North Carolina was labeled in the 'red zone' for <br />cases by the White House Coronavirus Task Force and <br />reporting a positivity rate of almost above 10 percent. <br />"It was pretty clear that we were heading into <br />uncharted waters with this pandemic by July and