Harris did the right thing on colleges – but he did it too late

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harry.mcgee@gmail.com

Last Friday the new Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris did a smart thing. A day after the big Government announcement – where Donegal was whooshed up to Level 3 – he made a separate call.  All third level institutions in the country were also to be put on Level 3, Harris announced. That meant lectures online rather than on campus plus most other activities being conducted remotely.

In a sense it seemed like a smart bit of preventative public health action. But was it already too late?

There was a good reason for the action. In the past few weeks, universities and colleges reopened in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The results were predictable. If you are in your teens or in your twenties, in the battle of hormones versus virus, hormones will win even time – especially when alcohol is involved.

Within a week of the UK reopening its colleges, authorities at Glasgow University were already sagging under the weight of new cases confronting them.

By Friday of last week the university had recorded 172 positive cases and there were over 600 students isolating. That figure increased over the weekend.

That was replicated across Britain where there were at least 23 outbreaks reported at colleges and universities. Preventing students from congregating is a little like Canute telling the incoming tide to stop.

It’s been the same in the States, where colleges have become the new Covid hot spots during September. Infections of the virus on the campuses of universities is now nearing 100,000 in the US this year, with about 40,000 of them in September alone.

It’s not the campus itself. At least that is a controlled environment. I’m on the Údarás of NUI Galway and know that the college authorities have gone to great lengths in making the campus as safe as possible, including a massive plan for remote teaching and learning.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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