Stop Blaming Students For The Rise in Covid-19 Cases

Students are being bashed in the news for being the 'reason' behind the spike in corona virus cases in September - and not many people are empathising with the students that are stuck at home, alone and scared or the international students who are paying a fortune to sit in a room in a foreign country.

The majority of students, like myself, are actually doing everything they can to stop the spread of Covid-19 and to prevent ourselves getting it. I think it actually comes as a shock to many adults that us students don’t want to catch a new virus; we know virtually nothing about.

Yes, the mortality rate for people our age with corona virus is low, but that doesn’t mean we want to go out of our way to catch it… obviously.

Here are 3 possible reasons why the cases amongst students have crept so high:

1) We share accommodation – Yes. That means that many people have to share a kitchen with often around 5 other people, sometimes more! In this case, even if only 1 of those 6 people are not being safe (i.e. not using masks when they should and not sanitising before using the kitchen), corona virus could be easily spread if that said person was positive.

2) Us students come from all over the world, whether its Cheshire or London, or Beijing or Sydney, we come from everywhere. Now, I’m no scientist, but what happens when you mix all those people, from all those different places together when the world is in a pandemic? It can’t be good.

3) Face-to-face teaching. I know, everybody prefers this way, it allows us to actually communicate with other people in real life, instead of behind a screen! But, with everyone walking in and out of classrooms, using libraries and study facilities, it only takes 1 person to spread the virus. It really isn’t easy for us to avoid.

Now, I don’t live under a rock. I have seen the news about Covid-themed parties at universities, the fines being given to some students who ignore the rule of 6 and the way they broadcast our positive cases statistics like it’s shocking.

However, what I fail to see broadcasted all over the news is the adults that are breaking the new Covid-19 laws, or the impact that schools are having on the rising cases.

The news is using students as a source of blame, labelling us as irresponsible rule-breakers, but you simply cannot categorise all students.

Being a student right now is really tough. Imagine moving hours away from your family, to sit in a blank room, you’re not allowed to see your friends, lessons are online and now we are not allowed to go home, because apparently, we are the main source of the spread of this pandemic.

We students are sad, lonely and just want this to be over. We don’t want cases to rise!

We are paying £9250 a year, to sit at home and teach ourselves content through online lectures. Trust me when I say, we really don’t want this virus to spread.

In a short investigation, I took to twitter to see how students were feeling about University during this pandemic.

My first Poll read: What is your opinion of face to face teaching at university?

Unsurprisingly, 62.5% of respondents said they want to bring it back, the remaining 37.5% said they would rather stay isolated.

In another poll, 58.3% of people said they felt online studies was okay as a temporary source, while the other 41.7% said they hated it and want face to face teaching to resume.

I think it would be fair to say that students who want face to face teaching should be able to get it. After all, schools are allowed to be open and universities can reinforce social distancing much better than schools can, plus; we’re paying enough for it.

If you take anything away from reading this, please know that the majority of students are trying, we just seem to be getting the blame for nations problems.