Covid-19 surge on campuses ‘risks poisoning town-gown relations’

Pre Covid things were bad enough, especially where absentee landlords bought up huge tracts of former council housing (becoming Hovels of Multiple Occupation) to rent to students. Winchester City Council effectively banned such profiteering landlords from buying and HMOing in several areas of the city due to friction between locals and students ('entitled' students using other peoples gardens as toilets and waking whole neighbourhoods returning late at night along with criminal damage to property whilst drunk being the main reasons). Now with the latest generation of s-TOO-DENSE ignoring social distancing (reports of barging older locals and reaching around them to grab things off shelves from Uni staff who live/shop locally) whilst shopping in local supermarkets and the exponential growth in Covid cases in Halls and Hovels (unsurprising given the partying still going on) the resentment is growing. Once the next round of local residents deaths starts Universities things will degenerate even further.

The article, and wider media, have missed the important point that SOME (not all) universities have established (at their own expense) on campus testing specifically to "help control outbreaks caused by asymptomatic transmission among staff and student" (quote from the University of Nottingham testing service). This is finding as "cases" positive tests amongst staff and students who may otherwise never have needed to take a test - but who would have nevertheless potentially spread the virus. The reporting of "university hot spots" needs to take this into account.