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.

If anyone suffers claustrophobia they will likely be in a bad place. I would be

I’m not surprised people are questioning the legality

@noblegiraffe

If you’re isolating, you’re not supposed to leave your house. That applies to everyone?

If there is a positive case of coronavirus, then the household of that person, and their close contacts over the 2 days before they became symptomatic [and any close contacts once they were symptomatic] have to self-isolate. Self-isolation is stricter than lockdown - no member of the household should leave the house, so no walks, going to work, shopping etc.

That is the rule for everyone, wherever they may live. In a hall of residence, if there is 1 case in a single flat BUT that flat has been following proper social distancing guidelines - rule of 6, strict SD outside the household etc - then only close contacts within the flat [probably the whole flat] will have to isolate.

However, where you have multiple cases - up to hundreds of cases - in a hall of residence AND strict SD between households / flats and individual students hasn't been observed, then basically everyone becomes a close contact with a case, and the whole hall has to go into self isolation for 14 days.

It's not a student thing - well, the behaviour and lack of SD is a student thing, probably. It applies to any place or any group of people where this situation of multiple cases and a large network of close contacts arises.

It was also entirely predictable. Anyone going to university this year, should have known that this was an obvious risk, and also have realised that returning home was not going to be advisable or in mny cases possible. DS went off a couple of weeks ago, and unless his institution closes completely along with his accommodation, we all knew when he went that we might not see him until next Spring.

I am not OK with this.

One day we will look back on this with horror. The way this Govt and other countries have treated children, young people and the vulnerable is unforgivable.

These students will vote with their feet at every future election.

@PicsInRed

Because most people aren't too sharp and fail to appreciate the banality of evil (and how this begins as the "slow boiled frog"). They don't understand how authoritarianism usually begins - by the willing acquiescence of the people.

More charitably, their lives and backgrounds have been so safe and lacking in evil that they dont appreciate how it can creep up on you in a benign and caring disguise which fools all.

Agreed. Thankfully they have lawyers fighting their corner. You know, those pesky activist ones (according to the government).

Where’s Gavin Williamson is my question? He should be explaining what is going on here but he can’t because it makes no sense and is totally against the pillars of our society. I thought we lived in a democracy with the freedoms that come along with that.
Yes if someone in your flat has Covid or symptoms isolate but not entire halls. The rest of the street don’t have to isolate coz Mr Brown 20 doors up is!

Definitely not okay with this. Young people deserve so much better.

I really feel for students. They are paying the full fees of over £9000 only to be getting online lessons. Some were told that their course would be a hybrid of online lessons plus face to face tutorials, and have arrived in a totally strange city only to find out that lessons for the first year are 100%online. Those having to self isolate won’t really have a support network yet to rally round and do their shopping whilst they are locked down or check on them if they are ill. In reality they may be isolated several times in a year. What I would say though is that this too dissimilar to the situation my colleagues who have had Covid have found themselves in. Locked in their bedrooms so as to avoid infecting the rest of the household. But at least my colleagues have been in their own homes being looked after by family. Students are much more likely to be negatively impacted by this as leaving home is already a big transition at this age.

[Tory MP Steve Baker] said: "100 Acts of Parliament have been used to put in place about 242 statutory instruments, and there have been about 200 changes.

"When you've got a body of law that large, changing that fast, I doubt really anyone understands what that law is.

"This is not a free environment for a free people.

"How do people think that liberty dies? It dies like this with Government exercising Draconian powers without parliamentary scrutiny in advance."

Mr Baker continued: "It's extremely serious, I don't think I look like a hysterical person to you.

"Rishi Sunak brought up this issue that we need to learn to live without fear. At the moment, the public are being deliberately told that they should be afraid.

"The Government has been frightening people into compliance and it hasn't been working."

Video here - Sky News:

news.sky.com/video/sophy-ridge-this-is-how-liberty-dies-says-steve-baker-mp-12083185

@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?

Obviously locked in is wrong.

However, ensuring that students - not always renowned for being the most sensible of people - complete self-isolation as required through manning exit points and, while providing for all needs, including psychological and medical, ensuring that nobody leaves to spread infection elsewhere, seems like entirely sensible infection control.

I thought we were supposed to be copying Germany's model Covid response - apparently they've done rather well;

"Coronavirus: What went wrong at Germany's Gütersloh meat factory?"

"Around 2,000 staff living in the nearby village of Verl are now literally fenced off from the world, with metal gates erected in front of their high-rise flats and terraced houses. Police and security officials keep guard. No-one can leave for at least a week."

"We're European as well. We have rights. You can't put us behind a fence," one Bulgarian man shouts;"

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53177628

I wanted the Swediah model. Just saying. Not worried about fresher DD cuz she has ignored lots rules & is introvert at heart anyway. But this situation us what most ppl think is fair enuff even if I see madness. So I can't get riled. This situation is approved of as best case scenario by majority, not me.

@Spudina

I really feel for students. They are paying the full fees of over £9000 only to be getting online lessons. Some were told that their course would be a hybrid of online lessons plus face to face tutorials, and have arrived in a totally strange city only to find out that lessons for the first year are 100%online. Those having to self isolate won’t really have a support network yet to rally round and do their shopping whilst they are locked down or check on them if they are ill. In reality they may be isolated several times in a year. What I would say though is that this too dissimilar to the situation my colleagues who have had Covid have found themselves in. Locked in their bedrooms so as to avoid infecting the rest of the household. But at least my colleagues have been in their own homes being looked after by family. Students are much more likely to be negatively impacted by this as leaving home is already a big transition at this age.

But surely, any parent or student with any ounce of common sense will have worked out that most students will have to self-isolate repeatedly this year, and will have provided food packs etc to be used in an emergency?

The hand-wringing over this is breathtaking naive - what did these students and their parents THINK was going to happen??

Because the people driving this hate young people. Look at the coverage: the vitriol poured on young people for just doing what young people do. The pictures of groups out and about. The salacious envious hatred directed at students.

These kids are going to be suffering the financial effects of lockdown for decades. Unemployment, savage cuts in health & social care & in education. Economic collapse. They will judge us very harshly & I don’t blame them at all.

It’s like World War One. Sacrificing the young. Elderly generals merrily sacrificing young lives, & criticising the young for not being up for it. That’s not remembered as being our finest hour, is it?

I’m over 50 & I feel ashamed of my generation.

Students are adults.
We wouldn't accept this for any other demographic but it's ok to treat every single student that lives in halls as if they are feckless.

This is collective punishment. We should not be ok with that.

@Itisasecret. CALM down

FFS I said I was fine with them being told to stay in their dorms, NIT that it was OK to LOCK them in.

I tend to think that at 18 you are an adult.

And therefore if you are unhappy with the rules imposed by your university, work or partner you can vote with your feet and leave.

I can't get indignant and worked up on behalf of people who are supposedly intelligent enough to obtain a degree. Cries of 'we are failing young people' make me wonder why any competent adult would need looking after by random strangers. And I'd have been fucked off at 18 at anyone deciding I couldn't make my own decisions or needed my hand holding.

If there is a fire there will be murder charges. Fire doors locked ? We seem to now live in a police state where your liberty can be taken away because someone else, who you've never met, is sick. Removal of Liberty is an offence in this country. Some Unis have acted appallingly and I hope the students sue them.

What is wrong is that students with 100% online courses were still expected to take up residence. They should have been offered the choice, but with very clear laying out of what that choice meant - if you live in student accommodation, then you need to follow SD and other rules and you will need to isolate when you are in contact with a Covid case.

There is a huge difference between self isolating in your own home in your normal family unit and asking 17 year olds in a small room in a new city living with complete strangers to self isolate
If people can't see that then I despair

I feel sorry for them. I understand the need to isolate if they have come into contact, but surely not every student falls into that category.
They should at least be given the option to go home to family if their family are happy with the risk.

[quote AmelieTaylor]@Itisasecret. CALM down

FFS I said I was fine with them being told to stay in their dorms, NIT that it was OK to LOCK them in.[/quote]
Absolutely. Completely fine to assume that everyone in the building who had been in contact with a positive case would want to do the responsible thing and self-isolate, and to provide the support and wherewithal to do so comfortable. Completely fine to remind, and if necessary enforce, compliance with self-isolation, as is now the case for everyone else in the country, of whatever age.

Not fine to lock fire doors.

@FredtheFerret but that's the point. They couldn't leave. They locked hundreds of innocent people up. No other adults have been treated like this. Unis have now backtracked and said they can go home and they only advise they stay put. I'd still sue.
And why did students go ? Because Unis promised them things that they are now having to change. And these kids have had 6 months of nothing and want to resume their lives. They are trying to make the best of things.
The press seem to know about a lot of large parties but I've seen one video. Not exactly evidence of bad behaviour. It's not like they've done a Scummings.

Its shocking and I cannot understand how it can be legal to literally lock someone in their property? We are not china, where that kind of thing seemed common. I thought it was illegal here, seemingly not

Well said gladysthesphinx , I agree with you 100%

The kids have been thrown under the bus here!

@user1487194234

There is a huge difference between self isolating in your own home in your normal family unit and asking 17 year olds in a small room in a new city living with complete strangers to self isolate If people can't see that then I despair

Then the family should have decided not to send their child to university. This was absolutely predictable, indeed inevitable, and EVERY parent should have prepared their child fully for this eventuality and talked through strategies.