UEA (2019) dealing with the unexpected and on to 2nd Year

[juicy0]

New thread for the parents of 2019 freshers. Thank you all for sticking around!
At the start of the year we never would have guessed the topics that are currently being discussed in this page but I'm grateful we still have each other to help navigate our way through this with our DC.
With the emptying of 1st year rooms seemingly on hold for many until the end of lockdown our thoughts will soon turn to 2nd year accommodation and whether term is likely to start as normal in September.

@242Mummy

Isn't the Campus Kitchen an onsite cafe/restaurant? So £4/meal would be roughly what students pay if they popped in for say, a coffee and pastry at breakfast time, or a meal deal at lunchtime? I can't see why people are outraged by this.

The restaurant is offering an alternative way of getting food - looks like a premium service where food is prepared and packaged for them. Plus daily delivery. Students aren't forced to buy this package. They can still order online supermarket deliveries themselves and if there are no slots available, the SU has arranged priority delivery slots for those who are self isolating.

Perhaps because they are not eating a £4 snack at breakfast, nor a £4 lunch. Sadly they do not all have that kind of money

I reckon DS probably doesn't spend more than £20 a week on food, with the odd Deliveroo thrown in for a treat (but not weekly!). And he never eats breakfast so that would be a waste. It would be okay as a 'couple of days' last resort option though particularly if it proves difficult to get an online delivery.

DN has just had a positive COVID test result (first year).

Ds popped home this afternoon to drop his laptop off. I'll see what our local pc shop say about it. I wasn't keen on letting him in really as I always worry about covid and dh. But dh said stay for dinner. So he did and stayed a few hours. Ds seems to think there have been several hundred positive cases on campus. But the local news isn't reporting that many. So I don't know what is correct and probably no point worrying about it.

Ds seems to be happy and enjoying living in Norwich with his friends. As I said yesterday he's got one lab. session a week (pre covid and pre strikes it was four or five) Then he has one face to face lecture a week. This weeks lecture was in one of the biggest buildings and only about 30 students. So they all sat a long way apart.

I asked him if they are keeping the house clean. He said yes. I asked if he's vacuumed his room, no. He said the others had done vacuuming around the rest of the house, so I told him not to be that person who doesn't help around the house...I can imagine that happening!

How is your DS finding his room @icanbewhatiwant, now that he's several weeks into living there?

Hope the local pc repair shop can mend his laptop.

DN has tested positive. I find it hard to believe that she's one of the unlucky few - suspect the true number is more like your DS's suggestion than the official line. I think someone asked the question on the UEA FB page related post but official answer came there none (yet).

As C19 is a notifiable disease any cases through the Uni testing will get reported through and included in the published numbers on the government dashboard - how quickly they come through is another question, but you'd need to be a pretty ardent conspiracy theorist to suggest it would be weeks as opposed to days.

Cases in Norwich have shown an increase, but remain quite limited relative to many place. Exeter is a bit of a shocker, seemingly driven mainly by the Uni. coronavirus.data.gov.uk/cases?areaType=ltla&areaName=Exeter

looking at the home locations of a significant proportion on UEA students - East of England, South East - and the C19 rates in those regions (a lot, lot lower than North West, North East, Yorks & Humber etc) the level of cases seems to follow a logic. At the moment at least.

I just fell down a rabbit hole reading the UEA student stats @boys3. I am really surprised that such a high % of undergraduates are so local.

So, having tested negative last week, DS was hit by sudden fatigue, headache, nausea etc on Sunday night and slept for most of the last few days, apart from watching his seminars online. The good news is that he was feeling much better this morning. The bad news is that one of his flat mates got her results back today and has tested positive, so now the whole flat is self-isolating. I asked him if he could get another test to check if he has it but he seems to think they can only be tested once. Seems daft to me - wouldn’t it be worth testing/retesting everyone in the flat so they can work out who has it? (and who will hopefully develop antibodies...) Otherwise I can see someone else in the flat testing positive in a few weeks time and everyone being put into isolation again, and again, and again...

how quickly they come through is another question, but you'd need to be a pretty ardent conspiracy theorist to suggest it would be weeks as opposed to days.

Yep, hopefully someone will now be employed to keep an eye on any future set of results likely to go over the Excel row limit...

@Cafeconleche that's annoying they need to isolate again.

The anglia news last night reported 30 cases at UEA 17 on campus and 13 off campus. BBC look east said 40 cases 🤷‍♀️

@NewModelArmyMayhem18 thanks for asking. I think ds is getting used to his room. The piano has been moved out. He's still moaning about the dining table that he is using as a desk. He likes a moan though 🤣 apparently they are all going to help him move his room round.

I know only one of ds's 6 housemates comes from London. One is from Essex the rest including ds from Suffolk. I haven't read the article about where the students are from. But apart from the chap from India in ds's first year, the rest were all from the east/south east England.

So sorry to hear that your DC has to isolate again @Cafeconleche.

Good that your DS is getting used to his room @icanbewhatiwant. A move around of furniture might help the cause. Personally, I would love to have had a large dining room table to spread out on with my books/papers etc. when studying! I guess things are different now that most resources can be accessed via their laptops!

I would think it likely that a lot of the post 92 universities have a lot more local students, but less usual amongst higher ranking universities generally. I guess East Anglia doesn't have the best travel infrastructure from the rest of the UK which makes it a bit 'out on a limb'. I guess you've only got Cambridge, ARU and UEA covering the whole region?

@NewModelArmyMayhem18 university of Essex too. I think they have several sites. We looked round the main site in Colchester. Ds didn't want to be that far away...so looked at the nearest 2 universities. He now wishes he'd gone further away.

Thanks @icanbewhatiwant and @NewModelArmyMayhem18 - tho this is the first time DS has had to self-isolate. He did the ‘UEA Covid test’ last week which was on offer to all students and which he booked online before he arrived on campus. His results were negative. One of his flat mates had her result back yesterday and tested positive, which is why the whole apartment now has to self isolate. He’s just tried to book an NHS test which are (apparently) available in the uni car park, but they’re only there on Tuesdays and Saturdays. In the meantime, some of his other flat mates have also now tested positive. I think DS almost certainly has a mild dose and is now recovering (and thankfully his flat mates’ symptoms also seem quite mild) - it would just be good to know for sure (and for future reference) if he actually has had Covid.

There may well be other degree-awarding institutions, but the University of Suffolk and UCC (the HE side of Colchester Institute) are two more that spring to mind.

@MarchingFrogs yes there are several other small places too. Ds has a friend doing a computing degree at west Suffolk college in bury St. Edmunds. I didn't know a degree could be studied there.
I don't know how much it matters getting a degree somewhere not so well known. Some students seem to only want to go to the RG universities.

For some reason, I never remember about Essex University (another rather forgotten about one?) and I wasn't even aware that there was a University of Suffolk or UCC! I'm clearly behind the times!

Are the students DIY testing or do professionals do the testing in the uni car park? I only ask because I was wondering how reliable the results are likely to be. Surely more likely the swabs will be obtained correctly (and therefore valid) if done by trained health care bods than done by the students themselves?

@NewModelArmyMayhem18 ds did his himself.

@NewModelArmyMayhem18 - ditto, my DS did the UEA test himself and then dropped it off in the square. The ones in the car park are NHS (Serco) AFAIK. Good point about the reliability of a self-administered test...

Hmmm, I bet a lot of the student self-swabbed ones show up false negatives (when they could be positive)!

73 positives tests at UEA now. Going up. They said on the news 100 flats in isolation. We have more positive tests here now than in the height of the first wave. But obviously there are more tests now.

Nurse at pre op assessment directed OH to a particular test centre 72 hours before he is admitted. She did not want him attending our local site where you self test and return the results. Does make you wonder.

DS friend at Newcastle all 5 tested positive in their house have just finished their isolation, all well and happy that it is now behind them.

Hope everyone is well! Sorry I haven't been on here for so long 😳 Ds now in self-isolation as a fresher tested positive after coming to one of his sports team's tester sessions. The fresher was asymptomatic so they could not have known. I am hoping the risk of transmission should be low as they were outside and ds said he was going round telling everyone to keep 2m apart throughout the session. It is still a bit miserable though as ds's birthday falls in the middle of his isolation so we can't go and see him as we had planned ☹️

@MrsBartlet hope your DS is okay. The way things are going at the moment I think it's only a matter of time before most if not all of our DC get it (and us too). Sorry that the birthday celebrations are going to be on pause while he's self-isolating but hopefully you can more than compensate when he's emerged the other side.

On the Anglia news tonight they just said lots more students have tested positive at UEA. They didn't give numbers this time. I wonder why they report how many cases at UEA but never any mention of Cambridge (or anglia ruskin, Essex university etc) they are obviously keeping their cases quiet.

There was a chap from UEA on the news a couple of nights ago saying we will never achieve herd immunity because we can all get covid more than once and the antibodies aren't staying in us for very long. He was saying things like measles we get herd immunity because we only get it once. I thought that was cheerful watching!

I fear this will just be the start of it. I can see this happening to many of them repeatedly ie they will come out of isolation and then go to a seminar and someone there will have a positive test and they will be back in isolation again. What a strange term it will be!

DS’s flat has another few days of SI and then they’re ‘free’ - until the next time.... Tho surely if the whole flat has had to SI (and all of them have had Covid symptoms, even tho only 3 came back with positive test results) they shouldn’t have to go through this again if they come into contact with another positive case? It would be useful if there was a reliable antibody test which they could take.

DS also had a call from someone at track and trace who noted his symptoms and asked for the details of anyone else he had come in contact with. Which was no one apart from his flat mates.

FWIW, Morrison’s had a load of slots for deliveries so they didn’t have to rely on overpriced university meals being dropped off.

The only thing that’s really bothered them is that you are ONLY allowed to leave the flat for some fresh air (10m maximum and socially distancing) IF you are a smoker