Kick students when they are down.

[Workingman]

Well, why not, they are an easy target.

Take thousands of individuals from all over the country and ram them all together in halls of residence then when a few test positive lock down that hall or those halls. The numbers then go up, as they did on cruise ships, and it is all the fault of the students. They went out pubbing, you see, or to eateries, or even to lectures.

Sorry, that will not wash. Even if the pubs and eateries had been closed the numbers would have risen - the science says so. Students are in the age groups where we find the most asymptomatic victims. Stick them in close proximity to each other, as in halls with shared facilities, and the numbers are bound to rise.

So, you lock them in and send them food parcels, and this is the second kick. Universities are charging an arm and a leg for what is junk food. East Anglia was charging £252 for a 14 day deal (£18 per day). This has now reduced to £168 (£12 per day). Other universities have similar "deals". It is not just the cost, which is outrageous, it is the content. They get crisps, a choccy bar, yoghurt, a piece of fruit, cake, sandwich and a ready meal.

I could send them the makings for a set of meals for a week for £35 tops.

[cromwell]

Even if the pubs and eateries had been closed the numbers would have risen - the science says so. Students are in the age groups where we find the most asymptomatic victims. Stick them in close proximity to each other, as in halls with shared facilities, and the numbers are bound to rise.

Exactly!
The cases have gone up? Of course they've gone up! Unis and colleges have gone back, students are sharing kitchen and bathroom facilities, of course they are going to catch it. Same with schools going back.

But the virus does not kill healthy people under 40, so isn't these young people catching the virus actually a good thing? Building herd immunity etc?

I am profoundly unhappy with them being locked up as though they are criminals; this isn't communist China. In my day we wouldn't have stood for it and I don't think the current young generation will for much longer.

As for then charging them for food, that is actually despicable but unfortunately imo that is the sort of country we have become. Anything for a profit.

[Suff]

Even in jail you get fed.

That being said this smacks of a total lack of organisation (or a surfeit of avarice), at the uni level.

There is no reason why the Uni's could not have worked with the major supermarket chains and allowed block ordering and delivery.

Mind you, a lot of students (predominantly male), can't cook, so it would be ready meals, sugary drinks, sweets, deserts and bread products anyway.

But at least they would have a choice to eat that crap.

[TheOstrich]

It does beggar the question as to whether the universities should have gone back at all.

And even if you accept it was correct that they went back, why encourage Freshers Week. Some Talking Head of a Minor University in Lancashire (or was it Bedfordshire?) said on TV that it was important that the students got "the whole University experience". Why? There's an unresolved crisis out there - things are not "normal" by any stretch of the imagination.

I do agree with Suff that University avarice comes into it, that is what Universities are all about these days - the money.

[Workingman]

There is no reason why the Uni's could not have worked with the major supermarket chains and allowed block ordering and delivery.

Stop talking sense!

OK, the students might / will have ordered crap, but at least it would be supermarket priced crap not Pret or Byron's priced garbage, and they would have had the choice.

Fresher's week, as opposed to what? Pubs being open nationwide a long time before students went back, or Eat out to help out, both mainly partaken of by the over 40s? A large part of it is to get to know more about your course and lecture rooms / classrooms, know the campus layout, meet flatmates, navigate the kitchen, scope out the library, join some societies and so on. It is not, as some make out, a 24/7 piss up.

Students, unfortunately, fall into the age groups where cases in the community are rising faster than in other groups. About 40% of them are testing positive yet only 21% of them show clinical symptoms; some 69% are totally asymptomatic - they do not even know they have it.

So, you take one asymptomatic from here, a few from there, another couple from somewhere else, all from areas with low case rates, say 30 per 100,000, then bung them in halls of a hundred and suddenly the ratio of x per 100,000 is off the scale. It was predicted and no amount of prior testing would have changed things that much. Test Monday = -ve, test Tuesday = +ve.