University of St Andrews: Students asked to observe a ‘voluntary lockdown’ this weekend

All events that were due to take place will be postponed.

Students at the University of St Andrews have been asked to observe a ‘voluntary lockdown’ this weekend in light of the rising coronavirus cases.

The university has asked that this lockdown come into effect at 7 pm on Friday evening, and have added that all events planned for this weekend will be postponed.

Students asked to observe a ‘voluntary lockdown’ this weekend

The statement from the university said: “It is now very clear that rates of Covid infection are surging again in various parts of this country, and it is very likely that we are very close to a form of further national lockdown.

“The First Minister of Scotland has today spoken of the urgent need to interrupt the chain of transmission of the virus.

“In these circumstances, I am writing to all of our students to ask you to please observe a voluntary lockdown this weekend, effective from 7pm this evening.

“This means that I am asking you all to remain in your rooms as much as possible, not to party, not to go to bars or restaurants, and to avoid mixing with any groups outside your own households.

It goes on to say: “I appreciate that this request will appear to some of you to be premature, but a hallmark of this pandemic has been that, as a society, we have acted too slowly in the past, and thousands of people have died unnecessarily as a result.

“Early action saves lives, and we have an opportunity as one community to take action to protect ourselves.

“We acted swiftly in March when the pandemic first hit Fife, and the situation we face now is just as serious.”

This move comes as Edinburgh Napier and Edinburgh College have both reported cases of coronavirus.

The First Minister said on Friday: “Today I want to give the nation advance notice, that the coming days are likely to see some hard but necessary decisions.

"If we want to avoid another full-scale lockdown - which we all do - doing nothing almost certainly isn’t an option.”

There have been 203 new cases of coronavirus across Scotland in the past 24 hours, and sadly, one person has died after testing positive.

The public are encouraged to download the NHS Test and Protect app which can be found here.

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