Piers Morgan calls for students to be set free after coronavirus sweeps through universities
PIERS Morgan called for students to be set free on Good Morning Britain today after coronavirus swept through universities.
Thousands of freshers are imprisoned in halls across the country amid calls to shut Covid-hit campuses.
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There are fears students will not be allowed home for Christmas and calls for tuition fees to be refunded after more than 500 cases had been reported across 30 sites, forcing students to be isolated in areas rife with the virus.
Speaking about the crisis today on GMB, Piers, 55, empathised with their plight as footage of students peeping out of their university hall window aired.
However GMB medic Dr Hilary Jones said it was neccessary for them to stay put to stop the spread.
He said: "University kids are intelligent, they're getting their degrees, they have to understand that humans transmit the virus between each other it doesn't happen any other way."
But Piers clapped back: "They know that but they also know it doesn't really seriously affect people of their age who don't have an underlying health condition. They can see the data like we can.
"That's why I think the answer is to somehow create some kind of situation at Uni where they go back but have to stay in the confines of their university campys, but not just their room – which I think would be incredibly difficult for their kids."
Piers' co-host Susanna Reid waded in and pointed out that some universities would struggle to enforce those rules.
She said: "For a campus university that would be fine but for city universities where your campus is here but block is over there…."
However, Piers charged on: "Well you'd have to put on some kind of transport.
"I think you've got to try. I don't think it's a mad idea… Surely they could create a bubble in the university campus' or am I talking nonsense?"
The Sun revealed yesterday many of the youngsters are partying to relieve boredom while others have questioned why they were told to return to accommodation when teaching is done remotely.
And students are also furious that they have to pay full tuition fees to simply sit in their rooms.
Phoebe, one of 1,700 trapped at Manchester’s Metropolitan University after 127 infections, blasted others and admitted: “It’s scary.
She said: “We have had no security on the inside, so it has been a wild party since it locked down.
“Everybody is mixing, regardless of whether they have Covid or not.”
Her pal Tom told how one drunken party was “petrifying”. He added: “Some students were banging on doors and shouting, ‘Open your doors, we’ve got coronavirus, we want to give it to you’.
“We called security but they said they couldn’t come in for their own safety.”
The students claimed the police would not attend as the parties spilled into violence.
Tom said: “They refused to enter. It was like a prison riot with the amount of food they were throwing about.”
They say they got no warning of the stringent measures.
There were similar scenes in Glasgow, where angry students, self-isolating inside halls at Murano Street Student Village put messages in their windows.
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