Tracking University Covid Outbreaks

[TheeStallion]

University of Glasgow: 124 positives - 600 self isolating students www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-54268780

Abertay University (Dundee): 1 student positive - 500 told to isolate

Oxford Brookes: 30 positives

Uni of Liverpool: 87 positives of staff and students

St Andrews: 4 positive, 40 isolating

Edinburgh Napier: 11 positive

Kent: 2 positive

Newcastle: 30 positive, 22 students, 8 staff

Swansea: 11 students

Cases reported at:

De Montfort (Leicester)
UWE (Bristol)
Aberdeen
Manchester Metropolitan
Stirling
Bath
Warwick
Queen Margaret (Edinburgh)
Queen Mary (London)

Have other countries had universities go back?

@ineedaholidaynow I think in many European countries there is much more of a culture of students going to a university close to home rather than moving into halls of residence. Germany has halls of residence, but they also have a working test and trace system.

@prettygreenteacup

I work at Nottingham and we've just closed off our main car park on one of our campuses to set up a testing centre for all students and staff to help catch the asymptomatic cases. We will all be tested regardless of symptoms. It looks like Area 51 out there

Is that all students in one hall or every student at Nottingham uni? Really good idea.

My daughter has just moved to Cardiff halls and they are all being Covid tested and they are having antigen tests.
It would've made sense for every uni to fully test all students, they have been let down so badly :(

@ineedaholidaynow

Have other countries had universities go back?

Lots have gone back in the US.

Generally they’ve either gone with a) very stringent testing, reduced numbers actually invited back, and quarantining, or b) done virtually nothing and tried to pretend it would all be fine.

You can imagine how it’s gone in each of those scenarios.

DD’s college in Chicago only brought back 3rd and 4th years, tested them all before they returned, tested them all upon return, severely limited socializing both on and off campus, and is testing everyone weekly. Almost all classes are online. They’re hoping to bring back 1st and 2nd years in January.

They’ve had very few cases.

@ineedaholidaynow

Have other countries had universities go back?

My nieces in Australia are doing all their college online from home.

Also Plymouth

@ineedaholidaynow

Have other countries had universities go back?

(Name change)

Some Institutes of Higher Education in France and elsewhere in Europe have or are going back and are running into similar problems to those in the UK..

apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-switzerland-europe-archive-8a2bfc2c5e5420f76900d18f78b083a5

www.estrepublicain.fr/sante/2020/09/22/covid-63-cas-a-l-icn-business-school

www.20minutes.fr/societe/2861951-20200915-coronavirus-toulouse-87-etudiants-insa-testes-positifs-directeur-denonce-comportements-irresponsables

@ineedaholidaynow

Have other countries had universities go back?

In Japan they are online.

They must have known this was going to happen. It just is not going to be possible to keep isolating large groups of students every time there is a positive case because some students will end up in virtual permanent isolation as covid spreads through the student population. Having encouraged students to physically attend they need to accept that it will spread, luckily most will be asymptomatic or only mildly ill. Last statistic I heard for the USA was 48,000 cases, 2 hospitalisations and no deaths and there is no reason to assume our students will be any different. Better they get it at university where they won‘t be seeing elderly relatives for a while. The mistake is to think we can suppress or eliminate this virus permanently, we can‘t. It’s endemic, we need to learn to live with it and locking students in the rooms for weeks on end will cause more harm than them catching covid.

Napier Edinburgh reported 125 cases in the week.

DD was on about coming home in Monday to study and get some hours in her summer place of work (fairly likely). They'd already been discouraged from mixing and couldn't get a booking at a pub for their household for a change. She's up in Scotland and now even worried about walking with a roommate.

@starfish4

Napier Edinburgh reported 125 cases in the week.

DD was on about coming home in Monday to study and get some hours in her summer place of work (fairly likely). They'd already been discouraged from mixing and couldn't get a booking at a pub for their household for a change. She's up in Scotland and now even worried about walking with a roommate.

Your poor DD, get her home. Nothing is worth them being treated like lepers.

Warwick is one hall (Rootes?) affected, with students living there all restricted. That was yesterday (not heard an update today)

Rootes had one case last week. Has it spread?

theboar.org/2020/09/student-tests-positive-covid-19-rootes/

The Manchester Met stats are staggering - 1700 in isolation! Such a shit start to the year for so many.

The Mcr students have only just gone back as well, it's clearly going to get much, much worse. It's such a student city I really feel for everyone.

Even the 2nd and 3rd years who mostly live in private accommodation likely to be affected e.g. the density of the rentals in Fallowfield.

[quote LilyPond2]@ineedaholidaynow I think in many European countries there is much more of a culture of students going to a university close to home rather than moving into halls of residence. Germany has halls of residence, but they also have a working test and trace system.[/quote]
Germany's student don't go back until October. Wintersemester doesn't start until 1 October, classes not until the middle or end of the month. It will be interesting to see if they let them go.

The problem for uk universities is the need to be seen to providing something in return for high fees and staggeringly high accommodation costs. They could have avoided this by being clear in June that courses - including even practical labs! - would more than likely be online - before students signed on the dotted line for stratospherically expensive halls of residence. Even the cheapest Glasgow hall with the 12 students per flat and shared bathrooms, no laundry etc costs around £150 a week. Universities now need to properly support these children with food, laundry facilities etc.

When my DD self isolated alone in her halls of residence last March she got one email from student support services telling her to let them know if she needed anything, no follow up or checking whether she had food, was well enough etc. When we sprung her after 2 weeks, nobody ever asked whether she had left or where she had gone.

And even though the students were advised to leave their halls mid March due to covid and not return, they had to continue paying and got a measly £350 or so of compensation for the rest of the lease term. Nothing more was due as the accommodation was still ‘available’ to them even though there was no teaching.

Kent (Canterbury campus) has a testing site set up in a car park too.

I agree Figmentofmyimagination. My daughter was promised some face to face teaching in small groups before she arrived and when she got there she has just one hour a week! Apparently that is better than some of her friends. She is happy to self study but even that has to be done in her overpriced small private rental with 4 other girls. She could have saved the money by staying at home and continuing her studies via zoom etc.

They were duped by Unis that refused to be honest because they cannot afford to lose the students fees and rental. Its a disgrace.

My daughter and her friends are socialising but only according to the rules eg in pubs in small groups, outside, with her household. It is totally unfair to blame students who were misled for very predictable rising Covid numbers. Many of these students have spent the holidays working in supermarkets etc and inevitably some will have got the virus before they returned.

Luckily my dd is in her 4th year with a good support network and I'm sure she will make the best of it. But for first years in grotty halls of residence, without established friendship circles and away from home for the first time it is cruel and unsupportive to blame the students.

I'm sure there is a some 'rule breaking' but quite frankly the risks of the virus spreading were huge even before this happens just by the nature of the communal living.

It is not their fault. It is the fault of universities and government who have failed to do the right thing.

It is not their fault. It is the fault of universities and government who have failed to do the right thing.

So, what is the "right thing"?

University of Portsmouth: 14 students test positive .

Berlin HU - apart from those courses where on site presence is vital - everything is online.
But the Präsenzzeit starts at the beginning of november, right now they are expected to do their papers, reading, research and some exams. DD is zooming like mad at the moment working on a group presentation. They have lots of different virtual work groups etc.

Oh and DD pays 364 € student fees per semester which includes a ticket to public transport for a wide area. That's it, so it is not as finacially problematic.

Could everyone not have arrived 2 weeks before term and self isolated?

I know a few local boarding schools that had everyone arrive and quarantine in smaller ‘bubbles’. They then tested the bubbles on a rota system and picked up a positive from that and isolated them and their bubble.

No one else, staff or student, caught it from the original student who tested positive.

In my DD’s case one right thing would have been spelling out in June that there would be no face to face teaching at all - not even socially distanced chemistry and biology laboratory sessions, and that there was in fact no academic need whatsoever for her to travel to university and sign her £800 a month agreement (she is in uni halls run by a private provider) - or even to set this out as a possibility and tell students they had a choice whether to study remotely from home if they would rather.

One right thing now - at the very least - would be to provide a significant fee discount.

Another would be ensuring that these isolating young people are provided at least with food, drink, broadband, laundry facilities, mental health support, regular structured zoom ‘town hall’ meetings with the uni so they know exactly what the uni is doing to rectify this situation, timeframe, who is taking responsibility etc etc at no additional cost, and a discount from their hall fees.

Adults outside higher education would never be treated like this. The uk infantilises it’s students.

Moving forward the other ‘right thing’ would be to maximise opportunities for students to engage in social activities eg outdoor sport, outdoor walks, outdoor live concerts, outdoor theatre, etc in a socially distanced way - so that they have at least some balance in their lives and some chance to make new friends. Their ‘household bubble’ is made up of a group of random strangers they have only just set eyes on.