Is it true that Scottish students are not allowed to go home for weekends etc as it counts as mixing households?

[Treesofwood]

Before we even move on to MHs dastardly plan to keep them all in halls over Christmas.
I know there is the option to detain people under the Coronavirus act if they are believed to be infectious, but these students are mostly not.
What would happen if an ill studeng tried to return home to parents? Fines? Or seen as reasonable and overlooked?

Does Nicola seriously think we would let our kids sit alone in halls instead of coming home at Christmas? Not happening.

Why has covid meant so many people are devoid of compassion for any of the very serious implications of restrictions? The only thing worthy of compassion appears to be if you catch covid for some people. As if it is OK for it to be made illegal for children to return to their family home, or young adults who may be struggling? I can't see this not being addressed and reconsidered

I can remember 2 students in just one year who may have committed suicide if they couldn't return home when they were having a tough time. One I would say 99% would have, she was in crisis - she moved home and we heard she was better after a while.

One other student did do it. It was so unspeakably awful.

Uni dorms and flats can become so toxic for some kids and these kids need to be allowed to return to the family home.

@Treesofwood

Why has covid meant so many people are devoid of compassion for any of the very serious implications of restrictions? The only thing worthy of compassion appears to be if you catch covid for some people. As if it is OK for it to be made illegal for children to return to their family home, or young adults who may be struggling? I can't see this not being addressed and reconsidered

Media hype whipping up absolute terror that Covid is a certain death sentence and, once people started to twig that it is not for the huge, vast majority of people, then terror at 'long Covid'. Divide and conquer!

Saving lives at what cost. Swapping one life for another. It is insane. This aspect in particular. People can rake the piss all they like with their "Tabatha and Tarquins" but to actually make it illegal for a young adult to return to their family home is just shocking.

Picsinred Knowing you can always go home makes it much easier to deal with some of the challenges of moving out if home for the first time.

@Enrico
There was no threat of suicide in the post, but merely a reference that the unacceptable restrictions placed on students in Scotland will cause suicides. We are going to get nowhere as a country on the issue of suicide prevention if we aren't even able to point out that policy decisions that will lead to suicides will lead to suicides.

For a significant number of students, home is not a safe or happy environment.
This makes the importance of forming friendships and carving out a new life all the more important.

With university life being so restricted, the potential isolation and loneliness of these students is hugely concerning as they don’t have the safety net of a loving home.

Everyones life is restricted they are subject to the same rules as everyone else.

No exaggeration - I would have topped myself if I hadn't been able to get home at weekends during my first year at Uni. My mental health was shot to pieces and it was the only way I could cope.

These poor kids are being confined to their flats with 11 complete strangers, not allowed to leave. It's like a perverse Big Brother reality show.

Just awful. Poor kids.

And yes, you can be 16 and at Uni. If you are young for your year you could have been 16 in February, sat your Highers (or not, in 2020) in May, start Uni now and not be 17 until February 2021.

It's unusual, as most kids stay on for S6, and the ones who do want to leave after S5 and go to Uni usually stay at home and travel in rather than go into uni halls.

But it's most certainly not impossible.

@R1R2

Everyones life is restricted they are subject to the same rules as everyone else.

Nope. Students have been banned from visiting any hospitality venues in Scotland. And only students. No cafés, no restaurants, no pubs.

My DC is 17. Ten days in and incredibly lonely already. Has attended no parties, like the vast majority of students in Scotland and yet is now blamed for something that isn't the fault of students.

We were not told that everything was online until after the course started this week. If we'd known, we'd have seriously reconsidered the move into halls.

We were assured by the uni it'd be safe. The government assured us it was safe. Not a word of warning beforehand about banning the kids from coming home. We thought at least the flats would just be local kids, to minimise any possible spread, but DC's flatmates come from Scotland, Ireland and the US. How the government can expect that a place like Edinburgh for instance can have 70,000 students move in from all over and not see infections rise - even without parties - is a mystery to me.

Btw, local reporting both mainstream and social media has been quite clear - the students who partied in Edinburgh numbered in the hundreds. That's a fraction of the total. So saying they should have known better as if they all partied hard is just low.

The government should have known better. I'd bet that they did.

Most importantly, the ban from hospitality venues just for students is most likely in breach of their human rights. And as in the case of my DC, also a violation under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Which is why Scotland's Children's and Young Person's Commissioner has already raised this as an issue. It's also unenforceable, and of course completely out of the legal authority of universities to enforce.

The cure must not be worse than the disease. That's an important medical principle. I think we've crossed a line, especially with new restrictions being imposed that aren't supported by the data.

Scottish Government 'advises' students to stay out of the pub for one weekend - Mumsnet erupts into a foamy mess about human rights

Scottish Government refuses to rule something out - Mumsnet immediately jumps to the conclusion it's a nailed-on certainty and heads explode all over the place.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX

Scottish Government 'advises' students to stay out of the pub for one weekend - Mumsnet erupts into a foamy mess about human rights

Scottish Government refuses to rule something out - Mumsnet immediately jumps to the conclusion it's a nailed-on certainty and heads explode all over the place.

Duration is completely irrelevant to the question of legality. And it's not just pubs. And students have been told they'll be kicked out if they don't comply. And where's the statutory basis for stopping students from doing perfectly legal things?

This restriction is about as legal as telling all blue-eyed people to stay out of swimming pools.

And the thing with human rights violations is, once governments get away with going down that road, there's no good destination at the end of it. It's much easier to govern a populace by dictat. It's even easier when the people themselves tolerate any violations of their legal rights and deride those who point it out. I've grown up under a dictatorship. This is how they start.

You seem to be completely missing the point that it's a request. Nothing more than that.

Maybe if ppl follow rules now then we will have our Christmas.

Im sorry but uni students 17/18 ( Scotland,) also need to take responsibility. If it means housed and flats locked down then so be it. It's been done in other areas.

Torvean32 The virus is the problem. Not the kids.

Torvean32 Restrictions that could easily lead to an increase in suicides are OK?

Charlieparley I agree with everything you have said. The demonisation of students, restrictions on home visits and this bizarre request is fundamentally wrong. It should not just be accepted for the "greater good"

Ironic thing about this is a very high percentage of bar staff will actually be students... I don’t know how it’s going to be policed, as far as I see it’s students who have been told not to go out, I’ve seen no guidance for bars etc dealing with students. Also, how do they differentiate those in the 18-24 age group from students and non-students.

How long are the restrictions for? The news keeps saying this weekend. I suggested to DD she gets a bus with a flatmate to a local beach to get out , many are remote and not commercial. Apparently they've been told they're not allowed to do that or walk to shops together, even though they do their own shopping. This is tougher than lockdown when we could go for a walk with a member of our household

In my honest opinion this is totally overstepping the mark.

Surely it was obvious that Covid was going to spread amongst students.

Yet she still allowed them all to go to Halls.

Perhaps if she wasn't constantly trying to score political points against Boris Johnson then she could manage the crisis in a better way.

She is abusing human rights here.

Can you imagine if the same rule was introduced for over 70s?

The situation in Dundee - 500 people quarantined inside one halls of residence after one positive case. What happens in 2-3 weeks when these students are back into the community and another one contracts the virus? Will the 500 all be locked up again? It’s terrifying to think the impact this will have.

She cannot eradicate the virus. The more students that get it now (probably asymptomatically or mild symptoms) will make us all safer in the long run.

I know the worry is that they spread it on, and obviously measures need to be taken to reduce that significantly but this appalling behaviour by the Scottish government.