As we approach the start of University Term (formally Oxford Michaelmas Term starts on 11th October but many students will be arriving 1 to 3 weeks before then) it’s time for the inevitable “should we reopen at all” thread (1/n)

Half my tweeps think that reopening is madness and we should teach entirely online for the next academic year. The other half can’t see what all the fuss is about and thinks we should get back to normal. My heart is with group 2 but my head suspects group 1 will win. (2/n)

TL/DR: it would be possible to open with *reasonable* safety but it’s likely the Government will just panic and close us down before Christmas. (3/n)

So what is Oxford planning to do? It’s much easier for us than for most universities as our signature teaching style (tutorials) involves very small groups, nominally two students and one academic at a time, in nice rooms. This means we have *lots* of teaching space.(4/n)

Lectures, of course, will go online, but my lectures have all been recorded for the last five years so that’s almost trivial. (I’ll do an online Q&A session in their place). Science practicals will be a nightmare, but possible if the number of practicals is reduced. (5/n)

For tutorials the University is insisting on the uniquely dystopian combination of 2m+ social distancing *plus* compulsory face masks. This will destroy the effectiveness of tutorials but allows the University to pretend that the form of them continues. (6/n)

For those tutors or students who think this unsafe tutorials will move online (I don’t think this is formally stated but it’s obviously what’s going to end up happening - bespoke college teaching arrangements are common even in normal times). (7/n)

So teaching is going to be as safe as, say, supermarket shopping. So why do I think this isn’t going to work? Simply because tutorial teaching isn’t the dominant form of contact. Even Physics students only get 2 hours/week in tutorials, and that in small “bubbles”. (8/n)

The dominant interactions have always been and will remain the social interactions of every day life. Students live together, eat together, and party together. However much the University tries to restrict this there’s a city full of pubs outside the college walls. (9/n)

So in a months time we will have 15,000 arriving and returning students from all over the country and all over the globe, mingling less than usual but mingling all the same. “Freshers Flu” is legendary even in normal times. (10/n)

On top of the restrictions the University is adding its own local testimony service for staff and students. So not only will there be lots of cases, but we will be spectacularly good at detecting them. Detected case numbers in Oxford are certain to rise sharply. (11/n)

Does this matter from a health perspective? For most students basically no: while COVID is a nasty disease, given the estimated IFR for under 25s they will be in far more danger of death from drunken accidents. The vulnerable can and should be shielded. (12/n)

Staff are more of an issue as they are unsurprisingly older and less healthy. But even there the majority are in low risk groups, and we should concentrate our worries on the most at risk. (13/n)

What will bring this to a screeching halt is not a spate of student or staff deaths, but government panic over rising case numbers due to mingling and testing. I can’t see how we can possibly stay below current “lockdown limits” (14/n)

For all the government pretends to be making careful assessments, the reality is that it imposes mini lockdowns on local authorities whenever and wherever case numbers pass certain limits. And Oxford is already on “amber alert” (15/n) https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/18684477.oxford-put-amber-alert-coronavirus-cases-rise/

Aficionados will know that we passed 25 cases per 100,000 last week, and these cases were predominantly among 18-30 year olds. And that’s with a hugely reduced student population. (16/n)

The fact that these case are almost entirely asymptomatic is neither here nor there: the government cares only about case numbers, and 50 cases per 100,000 is a number beyond which (17/n)

To add to the fun when Oxford passed the amber level they installed a whole new testing station behind Tescos. Extra testing of contacts is a quick and easy route to extra cases. (18/n)

To summarise the summary, new students mingling socially and enhanced local testing will almost inevitably lead Oxford to breach these case trigger levels, leading to local lockdowns and then the closure of the University. And teaching safety restrictions won’t help. (19/n)

So what is the University playing at? Why have they spent months pissing everyone off with reopening plans that all staff I know consider either to be either reckless madness or dystopian over caution? I can think of three explanations. (20/n)

(1) They genuinely believe they can stay below the limits. Obviously that’s mad, but this is Wellington Square we are talking about, dominated by bureaucrats and social science types who really believe that society can be organised into safety by the great and the good. (21/n)

(2) They think the government will come to its senses when the number of local lockdowns becomes intolerable and relax the rules for those organisations with “well organised” (i.e. draconian) health and safety policies, so gold plate everything and hope for the best. (22/n)

The trouble with that approach is that recent events have made the government more panicky in its reactions not less, and so dystopian “2m+ distancing plus masks” will not save us. But watching the next month in schools will tell us a lot about how this will play out. (23/n)

(3) They know it won’t work but they want to be seen to have tried. In my rare charitable moods I find this the most plausible theory: classic blame avoidance behaviour (24/n) http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9353.pdf