Coronavirus: Another 1,600 Newcastle students test positive

A further 1,600 students have tested positive for coronavirus at Newcastle's two universities.

Newcastle University said 1,003 students and 12 members of staff were confirmed to have Covid-19 in the past week, compared with 94 last Friday.

There were also 619 new cases at Northumbria University, which last week said 770 people had contracted the illness since mid-September.

There were about 100 cases at Durham and 102 among Sunderland students.

Newcastle and Northumbria universities have moved the majority of teaching online.

Newcastle said the "overwhelming majority" of cases had arisen from social and residential settings and it was "confident" appropriate measures were in place to protect everyone on campus.

Students who are isolating or in quarantine receive a help package including access to mental health support, food vouchers and help with laundry, it added.

Northumbria said it was "continuing to make extensive efforts" to provide support for its self-isolating students with online concierge services or food parcels delivered by staff and the students' union.

The organisations' move to online teaching was announced on Wednesday and came after Northumbria staff voted to ballot for strike action over worries about face-to-face lectures.

The switch will be reviewed on 23 October.

Meanwhile, Newcastle university's vice-chancellor, Professor Chris Day, has raised concerned over the behaviour of Covid marshals enforcing restrictions, who he said were reported to have "burst in" on students.

Prof Day, speaking at a civic meeting attended by Newcastle City Council and Northumbria Police, said he wanted "reassurance that they are not lone wolves out there doing what they like, which is the impression that I am getting from some of our students", according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Ch Supt Ged Noble confirmed councils assisted police in providing accredited marshals and they were initially deployed to areas of high student population, but were now going to be deployed alongside neighbourhood officers.

"That is not necessarily a light touch, where enforcement action is required we will take it," he said.

"But we are working very closely with the marshals, who to be fair are doing a very challenging role and it is a new role for them as well."

Elsewhere, about 20 miles (32km) away at Durham University, students living at two of its 17 colleges have been asked to remain on the campus and to only attend activities managed by the university for the next seven days.

It comes after about 50 of the 300 students living at St Mary's College and about 50 of the 500 at Collingwood College tested positive.

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