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.

I can't believe the number of conspiracy theorists discerning ulterior motives where there aren't any. I know, "Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you"...

It's a virus. It won't answer to reason or whim. But faced with a cohort of several thousand basically healthy young people, it's going to rip through, and the result is the DESIRED herd immunity. Students are the perfect population to allow the viral wave to affect. They have little to do with the main population and most will not suffer any serious consequences.

It is awful. I can't believe anybody could consider this a humane or sensible option. It is lazy thinking with poor planning.

A new fresher locked in a tiny room by themselves hundreds of miles away from any family or friends. Not even allowed to walk outside. There is a real risk of tragedy.

Absolutely rolling my eyes at all the boomers isolating in their own comfortable homes, often with gardens, who are quite happily advocating locking all these students up in shared, generic flats which they've only just moved into.

Really not ok with it.

Well yes @XingMing, I actually agree with you in principle there

However a bit more honesty from the government and the universities about it would be a good start! They can't keep pretending that Covid is uniformly lethal and yet purposely allow students to become a kind of herd immunity reservoir.

Have you read the thread? People have had their keycards wiped so they cannot leave

I understand that, what I am asking is where the law stands. I would have thought that national law overrides uni policy. So if they were to call for police or legal help, I wonder if they could leave. The university might expel them but even that might be open to appeal, if it was deemed to be unreasonable.

If they have tested positive or are a close contact of someone who has they do have to self isolate, but others who are self isolating are not locked in under guard. So if that is a university policy, does it actually stand legally is what I am wondering.

I am sure they will remember at the polling booth and in Scotland that bodes badly for the SNP

I guess some of us are sympathetic and open to the fact that the government of got things wrong. Others follow like sheep and think everything they do and say is acceptable!

I do not think the Government has got things right - I am astonished, for example,a t the level of outrage over university students vs the total silence about the far higher number of schoolchildren who are isoplating due to the Government's handling of the return to school.

I do not support the return to univeristy, and think students should have been allowed to study from home.

I think testing is an appalling mess.

In fact, support almost nothing that the Government has done.

HOWEVER, locking down a very high infection area, containing multiple hundreds of people who need to self-isolate, for the self isolation period, seems to me to be an entirely sensible response to prevent that infection spreading wider into the community.

Also, this was predictable. it is not the Government's fault - whatever else is their fault, which is huge - that not all students, and not all parents, realised that this was predictable.

It's not forever so less of the dramatics , it's got to be done unfortunately

Funny when that plane tested 13 passengers CV positive, they weren't expected to stay on the plane for 2 weeks, they were ALL allowed home, the 13 told to isolate.
I'm sure the 200 plus passengers weren't living like nuns in the Greek islands either but they all got a free pass home.

The students should be tested, those positive isolate back home, the rest allowed to get on with their lives.

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"

@catlovingdoctor

Absolutely rolling my eyes at all the boomers isolating in their own comfortable homes, often with gardens, who are quite happily advocating locking all these students up in shared, generic flats which they've only just moved into.

So where should they be isolating?

If you want them to travel back home, were you ok when Dom crossed country?

Let the viral wave trash your kid. You disgust me @XingMing

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.

Have people forgotten the people returning to the U.K. who were quarantined in accommodation back in March? We accepted it fine.

*I'm not ok with it OP.

Measures and restrictions should be appropriate and proportionate. Many are not.

Including both parents not being allowed to be with their babies in SCBUs. Including 85 year old men not being allowed to hold the hands of the wives they have been married to for 60 years. Including low risk businesses having to close down because of perceived danger. Including dementia residents being alone and frightened and deteriorating because apparently 2 more years of just existing is preferable to living and loving.*

I couldn’t agree more with this. Also pp who said that we’ve lost all reason and perspective. The erosion of civil liberties and human rights and removing people’s ability to critical thinking and rational decision making is frankly scary

They can't keep pretending that Covid is uniformly lethal and yet purposely allow students to become a kind of herd immunity reservoir.

Chris Whitty has said throughout all this that for many or most people it is mild (defined as not hospitalised).

As for herd immunity, I thought we were a long way from knowing whether any meaningful or medium to long term immunity is created by a natural infection.

*that not all students, and not all parents, realised that this was predictable

An 18 year old is an adult.

@MintyMabel

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.

Have people forgotten the people returning to the U.K. who were quarantined in accommodation back in March? We accepted it fine.

Exactly. We also admire the low Covid rates of countries that quarantine new arrivals from all demographics....

@noblegiraffe

Entire halls of residence are self isolating?

Entire schools of children have been sent home to self isolate. No fuss about those?

I think you will find there has been. It's not necessary at all. Some schools are being sensible and only sending home those closest to one infected. The whole school diesnt need to close.

@Randomer... pretty much so, yes, if you want to know. DS is 21, has spent 2 years since leaving school working 70-80 hours a week as a chef, and has now decided on his way forward. He has positively decided to attend uni and pay for it; there has been no parental or school pressure to improve their statistics. He is there to learn of his own volition, and as a customer. He's already up in arms about one lecturer's shortcomings: I reckon he will make his points and stand his ground. No passive waiting for his parents to intervene.

Why the assumption they were flouting any rules anyway? Halls are huge, there was no restriction on them mingling within their halls when they arrived. Given that university students are always hot beds of infections, they don't need to have been out in some club at 2 am (as if there are any) to have caught something. They were subject to the same rules as the rest of us until this imprisonment , and a lot of us have gone down the pub too. The whole thing is just shocking and the fact that probably 70% of the population blame the students (for what, being young??) is the most depressing thing of all.

@FOTTFSOFTFOASM

I am absolutely not ok with this, OP. If the students want to start a riot, I will be joining them.

As for locking fire doors: I almost think this must be an urban myth, as nobody - nobody - would be that stupid and irresponsible.

There were a lot of people out at the weekend where I live. To judge by the footage, very few of them were students. I would say the majority are locals.

There were photos of just such all over Twitter this morning, some taken by people from the outside.

Feel really sorry for international students who have already done two weeks isolation

It's not necessary at all. Some schools are being sensible and only sending home those closest to one infected. The whole school diesnt need to close.

It's not up to schools, but to Public health.

From recent interactions with the call centre:
Case 1 in a bubble - close contacts sent home.
Case 2 - bubble closes.
Too many cases, or too few staff left standing - school closes.

Never the school's choice.

@cantkeepawayforever what was the alternative then? Not go to uni take a year out, get a little job, travel the world? Oh no none of the above because there are no jobs and travel is a no no. Not every young person has options (Some have no financial support) and the government and uni’s openly encouraged their return to uni. So yes it is the governments fault.

Why the assumption they were flouting any rules anyway? Halls are huge, there was no restriction on them mingling within their halls when they arrived.

Rule of 6?

@XingMing, so some poor sod who is a young 18 is just some sort of cannon /covid fodder to be pushed out of the way. Its a bloody disgrace.

There will be kids who are in a very bad way and for fear of upsetting others I will leave it there.