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.

Locked fire doors?! Wow!

@cantkeepawayforever

I genuinely cannot believe that every parent on here crying 'those poor students' didn't think this though and say to themselves - and their child - 'Covid will come into your halls of residence, and will spread. You will have to self-isolate, probably more than once. What will you do, and how can we prepare you?'

You really are quite scary. Your thought processes are really frightening.

@PicsInRed

5 words: EAT OUT TO HELP OUT 🎉🎉🎉

Students and young people literally did their patriotic duty as the government directed them to. Then were immediately scapegoated for it.

Did they follow social distancing guidance whilst eating out, as required? Unfortunately, too many forgot about SD!

It’s an absolute disgrace. Students are paying for the privilege of being locked up.
Education is causing almost half of cases but as of last week the biggest amount of cases came from primary schools.
Is that being reported ? No because they need their parents in work. Students need to pay to keep university’s open and their parents can still work when they lock them away.
A matter of time before we hear about a student whose mental health cannot cope.
It’s abhorrent. And those who think it’s ok to physically lock people in a building , I have no words.

@user1487194234

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. You don't send your child to University You support your adult child's choice

Of course. But you can't have it both ways - if it is your adult child's choice to go to university, then they face self-isolation like adults do. If they are not adult enough for self-isolation - obviously with pastoral and health support from professionals as we may all need - then perhaps they are not an 'adult child' yet.

My 'adult child' is at university at the moment. They know the consequence of this is that they may have to self-isolate multiple times, may be ill alone, and may not come home until next Spring, depending on infection rates. They understand the totality of the decision they have made. it sounds as if not all parents - and students - did understand this.

@AuntyPasta they can't get food.

I honestly hadn't seen anyone 'okay with it' until I read this thread. Been a bit of an eyeopener.

Yes it’s awful especially when students pay so much.

@cantkeepawayforever can I ask if you lived in a block of flats and Mr Brown on the fifth floor had symptoms or a positive test would you expect the government to say “that’s it full block locked down - 500 of you isolate now. No warning just do it, would you be happy?

@cantkeepawayforever so you be happy for your child to be locked in - not just asked to isolate- if someone he'd never met but lives in his street tests positive ? Yes isolate the household but not everyone who lives in same halls. My DD has 3 blocks - she hadn't been in 2 of them. Oh and if there's a fire it's tough.

You really are quite scary. Your thought processes are really frightening.

Why? It's a really obvious set of consequences, that any logical person can think though:

there is an infectious virus, that spreads through close contact.
Students live in close contact with one another.
One case brought into a hall of residence will therefore spread.
It is the law that close contacts of a case will have to self isolate.
therefore, it is very likely that a student will have to self-isolate at least once, probably more, during the coming winter.

Which bit of this is 'scary' as a thought process?

I agree with you OP

I am so shocked how almost everyone has jusT accepted the end of civil liberties and freedom, that we’re being ruled by committee without parliamentary checks, draconian rules put in place, laws changing weekly, the government telling its citizens to snoop on their neighbours, the government no calling up the military to help police enforce rules, students locked in dorms, young people having their education AND their future chances ruined, the economy being torpedoed...

If you had told me a year ago this would happen in the UK I would have laughed

And if you’d said it would all happen under conservative government I would thought you were crazy

It’s extraordinary

Yet people on here and everywhere think it’s “for the best”

Do you think we’ll get our freedom back though? Or will the government try to keep us under control with their campaign of fear

I am not a conspiracy theorist, I don’t think there is a big mastermind behind all this. Am just an ordinary deeply concerned citizen

I think people have forgotten all those people stuck on cruise ships, unable to travel back from holiday destinations and then locked up on the Wirral when they did get back.
Hopefully the lockdown of students will mean the cases drop and things will get better. No one thinks it is ok for them to spend the whole year like this but is two weeks really that bad?
It was kind of bound to happen when young people from all over the country moved in together and universities started regular,y testing them all. I wonder how many extra cases we would pick up if we were testing the whole population.

Did they follow social distancing guidance whilst eating out, as required? Unfortunately, too many forgot about SD!

I've found young people (20ish) very respectful and careful about social distancing. Other than cherry picking the drunks, young people are not the problem here.

My 2 are not freshers so it's different and they seem absolutely fine
They will be coming home for Christmas,(whether they like it or not)

There is another way of looking at the current situation for university students.

The country needs them to get an education so they can be the future entrepreneurs, inventors and leaders. Sure it's tough right now but hopefully in a year it will be easier. For the moment we need them to study and learn so that when this is all over the country has a bright future.

It's absolutely disgusting they aren't allowed out to get food.
Not just the students but Manchester and Greater Manchester have been thrown under the bus from March.
It's been almost lockdown throughout, bar 2 weeks. Some areas of the NW did have a few cases, lock them down not entire boroughs.
I feel so sorry for them, not due to age etc, but having no support, we all need to be able to function, whatever our age.

[quote mumsneedwine]@cantkeepawayforever so you be happy for your child to be locked in - not just asked to isolate- if someone he'd never met but lives in his street tests positive ? Yes isolate the household but not everyone who lives in same halls. My DD has 3 blocks - she hadn't been in 2 of them. Oh and if there's a fire it's tough.[/quote]
I have said multiple times that being locked in is not OK.

However, effective infection control in many of the countries we admire has involved isolating factories, blocks of flats, cruise ships, hotels etc etc.

It is surely better for an area of exceptionally high infection to be 'locked down' to avoid the infection spreading into the wider community than it is to say 'oh, it's too hard to have them locked down, we'll let them out into the community, even though many of them may be carrying the infection'?

It's 14 days, not a year.

@CovidChristmas it's the locking all of them that is in dispute. Cruise ship passengers were brought home as soon as flights could be arranged and people tested positive. They were also fed.
We have laws about removing people's liberty. We are not a police state where we can lock innocent people in. We can fine if they break the rules but locking people up is a v dangerous precedent.
Hence why they've all backtracked as lawyers got involved.

Just send them home and shut down this whole in-person teaching idea. It was ludicrous to begin with.

@CovidChristmas

I think people have forgotten all those people stuck on cruise ships, unable to travel back from holiday destinations and then locked up on the Wirral when they did get back. Hopefully the lockdown of students will mean the cases drop and things will get better. No one thinks it is ok for them to spend the whole year like this but is two weeks really that bad? It was kind of bound to happen when young people from all over the country moved in together and universities started regular,y testing them all. I wonder how many extra cases we would pick up if we were testing the whole population.

Exactly.

covidchristmas but what if after two weeks some other students in your block get it. That’s another two week lock down and so on and so on.

Yes this is really sinister.
And yes these are adults. But they are very young adults, I was 17 when I started university. Ffs have some compassion.

@cantkeepawayforever you didn't answer my question. Would you be ok for your child to be locked in (meaning no means of escape or getting food) if John 17 doors down tested positive. Who they have never met ? You'd be happy with that I assume.

[quote mumsneedwine]@noblegiraffe I agree. If a close contact tests positive you isolate. But what has happened here is a few flats have cases and 400+ people have to isolate. That's like saying I get it and my 400 nearest neighbours have to isolate. I've probably never met them.[/quote]
127 have tested positive and 1700 are isolating. Thats not a ratio of 1-400.