Unfortunately, the nature of the UK higher education system is that there is a lack of accountability: universities are put into an impossible situation by short-and-long term actions of government, but don’t want to rock the boat by pointing this out.

In my view a lot of this is due to the way in which the government changed the domestic fees system in 2012. This accelerated a trend of marketisation and competition, and made universities incredibly reliant on both fees and ancillary income (eg accommodation fees, which they won’t get with online learning). So everyone blames everyone else, and no-one owns the problem.

The government has “expectations” but notes that universities are independent bodies. The universities have to meet these expectations, and lack meaningful financial support from government, so their freedom as independent bodies to do the right thing from a well-being/public health perspective (eg take an early and proactive decision to switch to online-only learning for most courses) is constrained. So they insisted on people being present in person. The result is a classic “first-mover” dilemma.

I have sat in a meeting with a Vice Chancellor of a Russell Group university where they admitted that if their university had switched to online-only and no others had, and there hadn’t been spikes in cases the students would have complained they were missing out. In the same meeting, the same VC said that “no-one could have predicted” spikes in cases at universities when they resumed in person, which is simply false: not only were there examples in the US, which had a couple of months head-start on the UK, but explicit written warnings were provided by unions and individual members of staff with expertise in public health.

Ultimately the result is that students (and most staff who are working very hard to deliver good teaching) are the ones who end up with far-from optimal experience. I feel very sorry for students, especially this year’s first years who were sold an entirely false prospectus in my view.

Indeed, being charged 9 grand a year plus accommodation for, effectively, Zoom meetings is a travesty especially for those who need to be doing hands-on experiences in labs and elsewhere. Saving lives is indeed a priority but the impact on the younger generations has been really ignored in my view.

This is not just a UK problem (though the financial impact of uni mightn’t be as big elsewhere): I have friends and relatives in health services in the UK and Europe who have noticed a dramatic increase in self harm, depression and suicide tendency in those aged 25 and below and many teachers have noticed that a lot of their pupils have basically disappeared. A friend of mine teaches in a school in Fulham whose catchment area insists on a number of housing estates: she estimates that 20% of her pupils have effectively abandoned school and the main employer, there, are gangs. Ditto for the 78 in the Paris region.

https://assets.publishing.service.go...accessible.pdf

here is the travel recommendation report if anyone is interested about reading what may happen after May 17 when it will be easier to leave the UK

Wonder if this meeting of the Select Committee will get any recommendations eased like the 10 day quarantine?

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel...-b1831147.html

This is the most interesting news for me so far this week, especially related to travel restrictions.

For me the interesting thing not mentioned is the outcome for those vaccinated. We know that the vaccine is only roughly 60% effective at preventing infection but is 80% effective at preventing hopitalisation and 99% effective at preventing death. The key question is how what are the percentages against the SA and BR variant.

If the UK is forced to continue its VARIANT-ZERO strategy (at least until an updated vaccine is available) then I assume travel opportunities will still be limited through summer.

Some of the people I know that work at universities are having a comfortable pandemic -- it's very easy to do your research in comfort from home, whilst getting last year's teaching videos uploaded to avoid dealing with students -- and they're in no rush to get the students back.

I also know of academics who are thoroughly exasperated with the restrictions -- and who are holding clandestine meetings with their doctoral students in cafes.

The problem is that there are more academics in the former category than in the latter!

yeah that’s like saying some ppl like lockdown and furlough because they are paid to stay home and chill

Today's data:

Cases 2,491 (2,763 last Wednesday)
Deaths 38 (45)
Patients admitted 181 (222 on the 3rd)
Patients on ventilation 370 (453 on the 6th)
Patients in hospital 2,481 (3,250 on the 5th)
People vaccinated up to and including 13 April 2021
First dose: 32,326,604
Second dose: 8,170,081
The seven day rolling average for daily deaths is down 11.5% on the previous week.

I have my first jab on friYAY! It'll be at the local vaccination centre less than 2 miles from my house. It's likely to be the AZ shot so, while blood clots are a one in a million possibility, is there anything I should be watching out for?

A pretty rough time the day after. Just take it easy and relax.

agreed and congrats! while a colleague had a bad response to the vaccine (feeling "sick" for a day or two) both myself and another friend really ended up just feeling a bit tired for a day or two. nothing more than things like "i could go for a nap now" that weekend!

The UK has some of the best Covid numbers in the Western world. US cases are six times higher with nearly identical vaccination rates (although the UK second-shot strategy does seem to be paying off). It’s hard to argue that the hard lock-down was not effective.

I am going to guess you are referring to the blood clot symptoms rather than the common vaccine side effects like fatigue etc. This was discussed somewhere earlier in this or another thread. From memory, they usually manifest themselves from 4-14 days. One is a severe headache, but there are others depending on where the blood clot is. They should be explained at the time of the vaccination and no doubt are readily available online somewhere.

I think the lockdown in the UK had a really big factor to do with our cases dropping so low. The vaccine definitely helped, but it was more the lockdown from what I have heard, and in the US there hasn't really been a lockdown. Obviously the US has 50 states that control what happens, and most of them have resisted any type of lockdowns and masks etc.

It is important to note though that deaths in the US have continued to drop, and I think this has something to do with vaccines more than anything else, especially as I would assume a lot of vulnerable people have now been vaccinated there.