Harvard Business School began the semester with in-person instruction but, in a sign of the times due to the spread of the Delta variant of Covid-19, the school is switching to remote instruction for at least a week. Beginning this week, all first-year and some second-year HBS students will transition to online-only instruction. Of course, one of the chief benefits of attending such an elite business school is building relationships with fellow students who are going to go on to become captains of industry. So the news, we suspect, was not exactly met with cheers from HBS’ student body. And since many elite universities tend to follow the lead of Harvard, this could well be a harbinger of moves to come by other elite MBA programs.

As Megan Cerullo reports for CBS News in a piece entitled “Harvard Business School moves classes online amid rise in COVID cases,” “‘With the support of Harvard University leaders, advised by city and state public health officials, we have decided to move all first-year MBA students and some in the second year, to remote learning for the week of 9/27 to 10/03,’ HBS spokesperson Mark Cautela said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch Monday. The move comes after ‘a steady rise in breakthrough infections’ among the business school’s student population. ‘Contact tracers who have worked with positive cases highlight that transmission is not occurring in classrooms or other academic settings on campus. Nor is it occurring among individuals who are masked,’ Cautela added…Ninety-six percent of Harvard University’s employees are vaccinated, while 95% of its students are vaccinated, according to the university’s COVID-19 testing dashboard.”

It will be interesting to see if HBS ultimately reverts back to in-person instruction after October 3rd. And it’s worth watching to see if other elite MBA programs soon follow HBS’ lead. Here’s hoping the students at HBS get to return to in-person instruction very soon!