This week the Scottish Government announced a series of temporary measures, both for Glasgow and nationally, to help to curb the rate of Covid-19.

On the whole these do not significantly affect our core operations – research and some teaching activities will continue on-campus – but they are likely to have at least some impact on our lives over the next two weeks.

There are however some measures which may affect us, and that are worth bearing in mind.

The revised advice is to avoid public transport unless it is absolutely necessary, for example to get to work (for those staff that cannot work from home). The University’s position remains that you should work from home should your role make this possible. The advice for people living in five health board areas, including Greater Glasgow & Clyde, Lanarkshire, Ayrshire & Arran, Lothian and Forth Valley, is not to travel outside the health board area you live in, if you don’t need to (unless, again, you need to cross boundaries to travel to work)

The new guidance includes tightened advice on the use of face coverings; these changes had already been incorporated in the guidance we published earlier this week.

The current meeting rules, maximum of six people from two households, will continue to apply.

In other areas, indoor group exercise activities and contact sports for people aged 18 and over will be suspended, with the exception of professional sports. Gyms can remain open for individual exercise.

These measures will be in place from this Friday (9 October) until 25 October. Full details can be found on the Scottish Government website.

As always, staff who are required to work on campus, with specific vulnerabilities such as an underlying health condition, are encouraged to raise this with your line manager who is best placed to consider the most appropriate action.

Throughout the pandemic, we have implemented robust measures to ensure our campus remains a safe environment; we are assured that all needed requirements are in place but we will continue to keep these under review. Moreover, the situation in our residences has improved markedly over the last week, and we are now only seeing a very small number of new positive cases each day.

To help protect against transmission on our campus, the University has made two free reusable face coverings available for every member of staff, which have been distributed via local line managers, along with a supply of plastic visors which are available at the Welcome point in the McIntyre building.

We would ask you to continue to treat others with kindness and respect; if an individual is not wearing a face covering, you should assume they have a medical reason for not doing so. There are sunflower lanyards and face covering exemption cards available from Student Services Enquiry desk in the Fraser Building, should you choose to wear one.

Finally, we appreciate that these further temporary restrictions are not ideal, however we will continue to work together to keep people safe and well and make sure our campuses are as safe as possible.

David Duncan

Chief Operating Officer and University Secretary

 

First published: 8 October 2020

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