Why are we okay with students being locked up in their dorms?

[JKRowlingIsMyQueen]

I just heard about the students in Manchester who are not allowed to leave their dorms.

Why on earth is this allowed to happen? So the rest of us who are not students are allowed to get pissed in a pub, get on a plane and travel abroad and back etc., but if you are a student you are not allowed to LEAVE your dorms?

What science are these kind of rules following? The science of Boris needing more ammo to blame young people for spreading the virus?

I'm losing hope.

@XingMing

All the remarks aimed at me are completely legitimate. But, actually, if you haven't babied your children through their teens, MOST (never all) should have developed the resilience to cope with a fortnight cooped up with their mobile phone for communication and their laptop for education and entertainment. DS didn't go to uni at 18, because he didn't know what he wanted to do. Now he does, is doing it, and is giving the manager of his hall (who is just 25) all the assistance he can with advising the younger students how to cope with the isolation.

Some people just want to find faults. Not that this is aimed @Randomer. Competence is learned; if you haven't managed it, it ain't because of me.

Yes but the point is that this will continue to happen all year

This won’t be the only time they all get locked in
The bigger the population the greater the risk

I doubt I would have coped with so much uncertainty and I’ve always been pretty tough

DS (freshman) was never going to stay at home to study. Going away and leaving home was, for him, just as important as the degree.

@BatShite

Disease control means anyone on your floor or even half a building will have to self-isolate for 14 days

Is this also happening in blocks of flats?

Am extremely glad to not be in a block of flats if so, thats terrifying and ridiculous, that a whole floor can be made to quarantine because someone tests positive, who may or may not have had any contact with the many made to isolate?

No, because it is bullshit and universities essentially waggling their dicks around to show how powerful they are.

I’m a flat dweller, because I’m not a student when a neighbour gets covid (has happened a few times), we don’t get locked in or have fire exits blocked. We all just carry on as normal.

@Dashie

I just heard this today! A friend’s niece has had her key card wiped so it can not unlock the front door of her hall of residence. The whole hall of students are literally locked in. Covid-19 is devastating but how can this be right?

Wow, that reminds me of some of the stories coming out of China in the early days of the pandemic. Utterly shocking!

@zurich09

Whilst the reality of what it means for students to live in student halls while isolating is terrible. What did people think it would be like going to uni this year and living in a student hall????? Why were parents happy to send/support their adult child to go to uni and stay in a hall.

Disease control means anyone on your floor or even half a building will have to self-isolate for 14 days. Any other case and you are back into self-isolation. That is literally how it works so why are people surprised and more to the point why did the freshers go. Even if they were going to have f2f activities this year -living in a hall with other students is basically being in lockdown for most of the year...........

And I am an academic and i have no idea why our students have come on campus, why they or their parents thought it was a good idea.

This aint ajoke - its disease control during a pandemic. Protocol arent going to change just cos you're 18 and a student. But if you are 18 and dont want to constantly have to self-isolate etc then do move into a damn student hall which is disease prone at the best of times.

Exactly.

Full time study at home for the vast majority, and properly Covid-secure accommodation for the few who cannot learn remotely, would have been a much more sensible way forward.

@xingming we may not all agree or have the same opinions on here but we’re all entitled to them. Regardless of that a good deed is still a good deed. 👍

I went to uni, only just 18, after my parents' apocalyptic divorce in 1974. I was more and less resilient than I understood at the time, so there were some awful moments in my first year... but you muddle through, and grow up as a result. But I was gungho to get out, out from a tiny village and live; my attitude was "bring it on", and I think people expect more guarantees now than there were then.

@DonnaDonna01 - no I expected students to stay at home, learn remotely and frankly probably have a better time than isolated in student halls.

and people need to understand - this isnt for 14 days. This is every time there is a case................it will keep on going for the rest of the year until they shut down the halls

I’m not okay with how these students are being treated.

I would bring my 18 year old home and hang the consequences.

My dd is lucky enough to be going into her 2nd year and a shared house. Had this happened last year when she was in halls which she hated, I dread to think what would have happened.
Many students are not party animals and take the pandemic very seriously. My heart goes out to those caught up in this.

@zurich09 but most students were not offered the option to stay at home and do online learning. In fact most were actively encouraged to return and discouraged from deferring for a year. All the while the government offered no advise.

I live in a block of flat - where most of the residents last year were foreign students studying at another London uni. Whilst a block of flats in the UK is not isolated I would suggest that for disease control/public health/following places where it worked - yes, we should be. I was v v. concerned in March because blocks of flats are also high risk areas but we werent testing anyone at the time. The fact that the British government doesnt do that is a failing not a good thing. The fact that unis have set up their own testing facilities to help these students is a strength and not a failure. Universities are currently doing public health duty that hte British government isnt

I’m not okay with it, I’m bloody furious.

all students were offered the option of online learning.....not because unis care about UK students but because they wanted international (i.e. Chinese students) to still enroll remotely.

Its not about unis - but about my surprise that parents/students/guardians whatever expected anything else. If anyone would like to look through Sage reports, scientific, medical and public health papers submitted to the SAGE in July this was all modelled and predicted. What did the students expect

Surprise surprise its a bumper year for us this year, but this still doesnt explain why students/parents thought it would be a good thing to do.

I wonder if it's because there is literally nothing else to do. They can't go traveling. There won't be many/any jobs about will there?

What else would they have done.

@zurich09 where and when were all students offered online learning?

It's easy to see how bit by bit Genocides happen... many people excuse the Govt for anything, all under the guise of "It's got to be done"

Yes I agree. It is just little steps all the time. What's starts off small - rationing toilet roll, becomes locking young people up under Police guard. Institutionally abuse happens in the same way. Wake Up Everyone!

Put it against a backdrop of a famine, a war or a Pandemic and this makes brutally easier to stomach.

Students will be shot in the leg next for breaching Lockdown rules.

@Dustballs - yes, I know.....but why did they come on campus. Remote learning was an option. And for those who say ah students need labs etc - looking at our figures those courses that we've overrecruited on are not those with labs.

Those with labs/practicals etc - yes they should come in....but literally no one else. Am hoping that for those with labs, they would understand the basics of public health, pandemics and disease control - and would make the judgement call about self-isolation v need to be in the lab.

as an established academic - I literally dont know of any uni that would not have offered online only teaching for non-lab based subjects. I know hundreds of academics and preparing online teaching is literally what we've been doing the whole damn summer.

There’s never been another instance where the non vulnerable in society are being locked up to protect the vulnerable..... it’s mental!

"If anyone would like to look through Sage reports, scientific, medical and public health papers submitted to the SAGE in July this was all modelled and predicted. What did the students expect"

Yes, because everyone should be reviewing the latest SAGE reports and medical and scientific papers over breakfast daily, as a matter of course 🙄

My autistic grandson is at home studying
He moves into his accommodation next week
I really fear for him
It was going to be difficult anyway..but this is a whole new level of deep doodoo

[quote DonnaDonna01]@zurich09 but most students were not offered the option to stay at home and do online learning. In fact most were actively encouraged to return and discouraged from deferring for a year. All the while the government offered no advise.[/quote]
Yes, lambs to the financial slaughter keep the semi-privatised universities and private halls solvent.