Specialist team established amid concerns around coronavirus being spread by student migration
The government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies is to help establish a team of coronavirus advisers for the Department for Education, following concerns over students causing a Covid-19 spike by travelling to campuses in September.
Minutes from a Sage meeting held on 9 July reveal that Osama Rahman, the department’s chief scientific adviser, will establish a “new science advisory group” for higher and further education. Last month, Sage raised concerns over the impact of around one million students returning to campuses across the country.
The minutes, published on 31 July, say the group will draw on expertise from Sage’s core members and subgroups, as well as from Public Health England. It will both give advice to the Department for Education and seek Sage advice “where necessary”.
University students “engage in a broad range of activities, which result in complex networks”, and there is “migration” between towns and cities at the start and end of term time, the minutes say. Sage fears that further education students are more likely to be in groups vulnerable to Covid-19 than higher education students, based on their age, income or ethnicity.
Any advice for further and higher education institutions “should be addressed in guidance to these sectors well before the next academic year”, Sage says.