Dear Janos, others,
I share your concerns. We have so far cancelled an Italy MSc fieldtrip at department level, and are currently in discussion on what to do on our Spain fieldtrips in April/May, as well as advice for independent mapping student, as well as
discussions with UCL senior management who will likely make further decisions soon. As the virus has a several week incubation period,
there is an increased risk of us going away and somebody either catching the virus, or potentially taking it with them from London. Even if the area visited (e.g. Italy) has no local cases, the trip still will be going through two
big airports. The issue, from a risk assessment point of view, is our ability to provide adequate support in the event of someone developing flu-like symptoms while we are there, and the burden this will put on fieldtrip staff and students (e.g. finding
extended accommodation, paying for it, delaying travel etc). Nearly every undergraduate fieldtrip we run, one student comes down with a cold / flu, cough symptoms etc. The very rapid rise in cases means it is a credible possibility (even if it’s a low possibility
) that members of the group from a major central London university may already have the virus, which we needs to be explored thoroughly in a full risk assessment. When we do that, we found it hard to see a plausible mitigating course of action other than isolating
them in hotel accommodation for the required 14 days, in the event we can’t readily get them tested.
The logistics of doing that are not at all straightforward, and in doing so we could put other students/staff at risk (because we couldn’t leave the affected student/staff member alone). There is worry we may get trapped there in quarantine
– we certainly wouldn’t be able to fly the student back if infected.
Also concerns being discussed are about where the liability lands, should something happen. We can imagine the post field trip fallout with students and students family. Italy has closed schools and universities themselves, so you could foresee the reaction
from a parent should a student go along and get infected. So – it’s very difficult on multiple levels!
Regards,
Tom
_______________________________________________
Dr. Tom Mitchell
Associate Professor of Earthquake Geology and Rock Physics
Associate Editor, JGR - Solid Earth
Rock & Ice Physics Laboratory and UCL SeismoLab
Department of Earth Sciences,
University College London
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I am about to start a two week field trip with 20 students to the Carpathians - from Nordrhein-Westphalia which is the highest incidence in Germany. Wondering about the ethics of bringing the virus there, maybe by somebody in our group
who has no symptoms.
Our University has not (yet) made a decision on this.
I would be grateful for comments or sharing reasons for decisions being made in other universities.
Applied Structural Geology
RWTH Aachen University, Lochnerstrasse 4-20
University of Hull have pulled all overseas geology and geography field trips with UK based alternatives being set up. UK based residential trips still going ahead as planned.
Eddie
All Imperial College trips (to Spain, Italy and Cyprus) have been pulled.
---------------------------------
Professor Christopher Aiden-Lee Jackson
Equinor Professor of Basin Analysis
Basins Research Group (BRG)
Department of Earth Science & Engineering
---------------------------------
Co-founder of EarthArXiv, a preprint server for the Earth Sciences
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