There are no COVID-19 outbreaks among Russian university students living in dormitories, so there is no idea to send them home. The Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov spoke about this in an interview with Izvestia.
“There is no centralized decision on the resettlement of students from hostels and is not planned. All decisions are made today on the basis of the situation in a specific area, a specific region. We realized in the spring that this should be done only at the level of universities, and maybe even faculties. In addition, now 40% of students use the distance learning format in one way or another, ”he stressed.
Currently, more than three million students study in Russia, of which 800 thousand live in hostels. The minister noted that stereotypes are strong in the public consciousness, one of which is the image of a student who, for some reason, must be ill with COVID-19. People are especially afraid for the hostel.
“But our almost two-month analysis – after all, many students stopped by at the end of August – and now it is the end of October – showed that everything is not so clear as we imagined it. Yes, indeed, in some hostels there is a difficult situation, although we do not observe massive outbreaks throughout the country, ”Valery Falkov shared.
According to the minister, when several people in the hostel get sick, they are isolated, contacts are analyzed, and depending on the situation, either the room, or the block, or the floors are isolated and disinfected. The most amazing thing, he added, as of the end of October, we have student dormitories where there is no case of the disease.
Read more in Valery Falkov’s interview to Izvestia:
“Only compliance with sanitary standards will allow avoiding the closure of universities”