Think the focus should shift to university

[CKBJ]

I am still concerned for my children to return to school, not because I think they will become unwell but the risk of Covid entering our house where vulnerable grandparents live with us and for the teaching staff who seem to have little protection. However, not much is being said about universities opening in a few weeks and the new focus should be this.

Many, many students will be moving into halls of residence and student houses bringing together students from all over the country. Independent sage has been arguing for all courses unless they require lab/practical elements to be offered online and remotely. This won’t suit all students but does give them an option and possibly reduce the amount of students moving around the country. Fees should be reduced accordingly. As the majority of students use a student loan to pay fees, they should only be responsible for paying for say 3/4s back and the 1/4 is covered by the government therefore meaning the university doesn’t lose any funding. The government seems to find money for many other things.

I was just considering the education side but obviously there is the whole social side as well. Many cities will have an influx of students into their pubs and bars. This could put a lot of pressure on the local areas increasing the possibility of transmission.

It seems nearly every year there are outbreaks of Meningitis and other illnesses that seem to occur when students all gather together. These aren’t going away, they will still be a risk and the added risk will be Covid.

I’m grateful I my children are not heading off to university this year but do feel for those who are and their families. Anyone else have any thoughts?

[maleficent53]

Students in year 2,3 and 4 will have commited to student houses. I can assure you the majority will be heading to university towns to live with friends wether teaching is on line or not.

[lovelyupnorth]

@DoctorDoctor

Both mine are in uni owned halls. Both in their first year.

Agree for later in uni they’ll be in Independant but both of ours are Redbrick campus universities.

I’m also going a degree and our uni is doing one week on campus and one week online.

[lifeafter50]

Yes they have already committed to shared houses in 2nd year and above.
A friend's son is at a drama school in West London and is gleefully planning the traditional fresher party for his course where the girls party in one of the 2nd year houses and the boys in another.
I did gently remind my friend that parties are actually 'allowed' these days, but of course they will go ahead.

[lifeafter50]

aren't actually allowed

[notevenat20]

Universities are not full of sick elderly people, they are generally full of healthy young adults who hopefully will ignore this shit and get on with their lives!

There are also staff at universities who are not all young (think Einstein in his later years).

But in general, the fear (which may not be well founded) is that the student body spread it amongst themselves rapidly and you then have 10,000+ infected people wondering around the city infecting everyone else.

[notevenat20]

traditional fresher party for his course where the girls party in one of the 2nd year houses and the boys in another.

Do they really have his and hers parties these days??

[lifeafter50]

In central London, full of unis with students from every country, including huge Chinese contingent who went to China for CNY, when the epidemic was at its height in March and before 'social distancing' and masks were in operation, disease was spreading widely - no deaths of lecturers.

[lifeafter50]

@notevenat20 they do at that drama school

[GCAcademic]

It’s not just all over the country, students will be returning to campuses from all over the world.

Universities in the US have already gone back and it’s been a shit show for those who went back to face to face teaching. Students have been having parties and there have been significant outbreaks on campuses, with multiple universities each recording hundreds of cases. There have also been dozens of deaths in the US related to these campus cases. The face to face teaching lasted a fortnight or less on these campuses before it was moved online.

UK universities are implementing rules to prevent students having parties, but you only have to look at the Higher Education board on here to see parents saying that their kids should ignore the rules and crack on with enjoying the student experience they’re entitled to. But the face to face teaching will stop if the US pattern is followed. Fine with me, I’m quite happy to teach online, but we’re told that students wanted in-person teaching.

I also think that this has the potential to be an issue with local communities. Vice chancellors are currently releasing statements trying to reassure local residents, so I imagine this has already been a point of contention.

Universities are not full of sick elderly people, they are generally full of healthy young adults who hopefully will ignore this shit and get on with their lives!

There are seven thousand members of staff at my university, very few of whom are young adults. Among my immediate colleagues are people who are in the shielding category. They’re being told that shielding has ended and to get on with it.

[AChickenCalledDaal]

DD is about to start. The university has made it clear that failure to follow social distancing requirements around the town will be a disciplinary matter. We'll see how that goes. She's going to a place with easy access to wide open spaces so I foresee outdoor parties while the weather holds. But it's coastal Scotland so the weather may not hold for long!

I foresee a lot of household lockdowns since it will only take one irresponsible student in each flat/staircase to put the others into quarantine.

[Herja]

Im a mature student, with very elderly grandparents I see regularly and a seriously ill mother. I'm a bit worried about returning.

What I intend to do, as I suspect staff will too, is avoid anyone young as much as possible... I have made many masks, using fabrics that should make them medical grade and have lots of antiviral disinfectant spray for chairs and desks (I have been a comercial cleaner, thus I have no faith in the cleaning). Will sit in the furthest coner and hope for the best. It will only be small groups in person.

I imagine it will be carnage. Everyone will get drunk. No one will social distance except when forced by the uni. There will be sex and parties as normal. All the guidance in the world won't stop this, so all anyone can do is hope for the best (and I am planning for it to go tits up and all be online again).

[ItalianHat]

We have a totally utterly incompetent shite immoral government.

Universities on the other hand, are doing a lot to deal with the black hole that is policy guidance which should be coming from our government.

My place is spending around £8 million over & above standard costs (which tuition fees don't actually cover) to make the university COVID secure. They plan to test staff & students regularly. We are all teaching in masks if we are teaching in person. Everyone on campus will be expected to wear face coverings in any building.

We've also invested in digital teaching assistants, and I know my teaching hours have trebled. Research leave and any funding other than external funding is cancelled.

We are developing a student social contract, which asks students to act as if that they are the risk to others.

I will be teaching online, basically because of age & underlying health conditions - precisely because of the mixing of students from all over the country, and the reasonable anticipation that students won't always act responsibly (30 years of teaching undergrads experience). But we know that there will be students who are concerned about their own health & safety, so we're set up to teach in person, with some students joining us remotely. I have several international students who will be joining us from wherever - as one parent based in SE Asia put it to me - We don't believe that the UK is safe for our DC at the moment.

It's going to be complex. and exhausting for everybody. But it's not for ever. I'm confident my colleagues will crack the vaccine by 2021.

Don't look to the current government to even be aware of the kinds of risks & concerns you have! We know they don't give a toss. But university staff do.

[Flamingolingo]

FWIW I think our university already had Covid in early spring, just before it became a ‘thing’ in the U.K.

I think this is possible because universities are such international communities, not just students coming back from Christmas overseas, but also staff travel (the vast majority stay here but I know two people personally who were in mainland China over the Christmas period, not Wuhan, but the air travel is possibly the likely route of transmission, and countless others in other parts of the world).

Our area of the city is largely populated by students, university staff, medics at the large teaching hospital. We have a small high street with two supermarkets and a bunch of bars and restaurants. It’s quite bustling and busy.

I was very very unwell in February, with symptoms that would now be declared Covid. Unlike anything ever experienced before, down to the loss of taste and smell. But so was half the campus and the neighbourhood. My office at work is right next to one of the busiest lecture theatres in the university, and 7x a day 400 people queue outside my door/I walk through the throng to go somewhere. The main toilet facilities for my area of the building is actually a large block that services the lecture theatres, and is often busy. From what we know about covid contracting it in my building would have been quite trivial.

That said, whilst a lot of people were unwell, there don’t seem to have been a big uptick in hospital cases - perhaps because the student population is less likely to be hospitalised. There is a local uptick in antibiotic prescribing in primary care for that time period which is so far unexplained.

So, I expect that universities will be rife with cases if an outbreak occurs. I expect local lockdown which will be a total pain, but I expect that for most people it will be a nasty illness.

[Flamingolingo]

Also, the amount of prep/planning being done by the university is insane.

[SnuggyBuggy]

I can't see young low risk people being motivated to social distance. Uni is a weird time, you are in a bubble and the rest of the world kind of fades.

[AChickenCalledDaal]

Here's a flavour of the approach which one Students Union is taking. It's certainly not business as usual on the social side, at least as far as freshers week and organised events are concerned.

[NeurotrashWarrior]

Flamingo does your area start with a J? You describe perfectly one of the areas I'm thinking of! The other one is H.

Having said that, there really were some nasty coughs and colds around last year and into spring that weren't Covid too. Unless we all get antibody tests or T cell tests, we won't know for sure.

[rookiemere]

I feel so sorry for new students. Going to university is not just about getting a degree, it's also about spreading your wings, making new friends and starting to discover yourself as an adult independent of your DPs.

If I was due to go into first year, or my DC was, I'd be seeing what I could do to postpone that. The reason they are still going to halls is because they can't get the costs back and they aren't allowed to defer.

We cannot and should not expect students not to meet other students and socialise, its a ridiculous notion and a stupid half measure. If it matters then give them their hall fees back and postpone until next year.

[avenueq]

@GCAcademic do you have a link that shows cases at US universities led to dozens of deaths?

[SnuggyBuggy]

I agree, you might as well do OU from your bedroom for less money than pay full fees for online learning.

[GCAcademic]

Here you go, avenueq, though you need to register, I think, to read it:

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-college-cases-tracker.html

[Flamingolingo]

@NeurotrashWarrior definitely not a J, and if the H is in the same city as J then probably not the same place.

[ItalianHat]

So, I expect that universities will be rife with cases if an outbreak occurs. I expect local lockdown which will be a total pain, but I expect that for most people it will be a nasty illness

Problem is, for people over 50, that "nasty illness" is about 13 times more likely to kill them, according to some research Mike Otsuka has been tweeting.

That's the thing that quite a few people (including our government) don't grasp. We are a society - we interconnect.

[DoctorDoctor]

disease was spreading widely - no deaths of lecturers
@lifeafter50 How do we know? Of the over 40,000 deaths in the UK who can say that none of these have been university staff? Plus it's not just about deaths, it's about the potential for serious illness and infecting others.

[Flamingolingo]

@ItalianHat I agree completely, but in our local area, whatever the illness was doesn’t seem to have spread too far beyond the direct and indirect university population (students, staff, school). This winter greater efforts will be taken to ensure that people don’t mix so much, and the slightest whiff of infection at the university will be stamped on. I know this because we have had two false alarms already in my department involving whole floors being closed until test results received.