On Saturday evening the government announced plans to introduce a second national lockdown for England from Thursday, 5 November, pending a parliamentary vote on Wednesday. If approved, the new measures will come into force at 00.01 GMT on Thursday, 5 November and remain in place until Wednesday, 2 December.
The Prime Minister’s announcement emphasised the importance of education and was clear that universities will remain open. We are waiting for more details on how the new restrictions might affect our current arrangements but, in the meantime, there is no change to present teaching, research and working activity. This means all teaching will continue, and face-to-face teaching will continue to be limited to essential delivery for students in clinical, laboratory and other practice-based disciplines, and that required for professional accreditation. Our current teaching arrangements will be reviewed again on Wednesday this week.
Travel guidance
The new, national restrictions offer further guidance on travel for students living at university either in halls or in private accommodation. This states that students must not move back and forth between their permanent home and student home during term time and the government intend to issue further guidance about arrangements for travelling at the end of term. The University is currently working on plans to offer asymptomatic testing if required to allow students to safely travel home for the Christmas break and back again in January. As soon as these plans are fully developed, we will inform all students.
Your wellbeing
We know that the benefits of face-to-face learning and in-person contact for student mental health and wellbeing are significant for many of you, and the measures in place to ensure that our campus is a safe environment for face-to-face activities are extensive. Libraries, essential support services and bookable study spaces on campus currently remain open and are COVID-secure. We are still working through how the new measures will affect our on-campus services and facilities, and will communicate further details as soon as we have them.
Even with additional national restrictions in place, we know that being part of a university community and remaining on campus is important for many of our students and we intend to do everything possible to support this, while continuing to act in the best interests of public health by being in constant dialogue with, and working alongside, our local NHS and city partners.
We are currently developing plans for how we can further support students on-campus, including providing further opportunities for face-to-face interaction. We hope to be able to communicate further about these plans once national lockdown measures are lifted.
As always, we remain absolutely committed to supporting you through this time. Please remember that there is a wide range of support services available to you, including mental health, wellbeing and counselling services.
We are working with the Liverpool Guild of Students to put in place a range of virtual activities for you to get involved in this term.