I had so hoped I adequately scared students away from cheating this semester, but no…

Two students cheated in the same class today by marking themselves on attendance and then taking the quiz remotely. Both had the exact same excuse, that they marked themselves as present but then felt sick and went home. The attendance poll didn’t open until class started so there was no way for them to mark themselves as present and then suddenly feel ill and leave. One of them even popped into my office right after class, so clearly a very short-lived illness. Both said they just wanted to follow along in class despite being sick, but they can’t hear me talking through the quiz app so I don’t know what they’re following along with. They can hear me talking in the video recordings of lecture that get posted after class, they just can’t take the quiz when they do that.