HAVING 1000 young people self-isolating in student accommodation at what should be the best time of their lives is far from ideal. The tough new measures introduced to curb the significant coronavirus outbreak among the student population includes a ban on socialising this weekend – no bars, no parties, no restaurants and no mixing with anybody outwith their newly formed households.

There was initially confusion when national clinical director Jason Leitch suggested that students without symptoms could return home at the weekends, before clarifying they should not. Then, during the daily briefing yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon said the guidance would be reviewed this weekend for students who wanted to go home.

The restrictions, which have been agreed between universities and the Scottish Government, will be enforced with a “yellow card, red card” system and Police Scotland have been asked to keep an eye on students when they are off campus. Students have been warned that they could lose their place at university if they fail to follow the new guidance.

What a muddle. But was it one that should have been foreseen and prevented?

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Some say yes. That if you encourage thousands of young people to leave home and take up a place at university – in the middle of a pandemic – all while keeping pubs and restaurants open, it was only ever going to go one way.

Others point to how quickly case numbers have risen after being relatively low for months and how rapidly new restrictions were brought in for the whole country.

While both the Scottish and UK governments have shown a willingness to U-turn when necessary in response to the crisis, it’s not altogether clear what that would look like in this scenario. With hundreds of confirmed cases so far, sending students back to family homes would present its own challenges. At yesterday’s briefing the First Minister said there was a “difficult balancing act” in letting students go home: “If you go home that may have an impact for your family who may also have to self-isolate.

The way this mess has unfolded highlights the frustration we are all feeling right now: not only with the re-introduction of some restrictions, but also with each other.

Nicola Sturgeon has been clear that she doesn’t hold students or young people responsible for the recent surge in new cases. In a tweet on Thursday, she acknowledged the impact this situation is likely to have on the young people affected: “To all students – I am so sorry Covid is making this special time of your lives so tough. But it won’t be forever and the more we get the virus back under control now, the sooner you’ll get a bit of normality back. So, please do what’s being asked of you.

On social media, others were less understanding. Some thought that universities and the Scottish Government were being unfairly blamed and the consensus among those people seemed to be that students should stop whining and get on with it.

These are young people who have already been through the uncertainty and upset of the exam results debacle. Now, having been encouraged to leave home and take up their place at university, they are stuck in isolation in halls with strangers, worrying about when they will be able to go home.

The fact that we are all missing loved ones and the normality we enjoyed pre-Covid doesn’t detract from the impact the last few months have had on the mental health of young adults. It’s a formative time where you learn about yourself and the world around you. Would any of us trade our early adulthood for what our young people are experiencing right now?

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We should be able to both recognise the unpredictability of the coronavirus crisis AND have empathy for what these young people are going through. What makes this situation so much worse is the haphazard way the information was communicated.

There was understandable confusion over the scope and scale of the new guidance. The First Minister tried to better explain it at her daily briefing yesterday. She also re-iterated that this unbearable situation is not the fault of students.

“I want to be clear as some of you feel blamed for the spread of Covid right now. Nobody deserves to be facing this and this not your fault,” she said.

We’re all struggling but that’s not a reason to turn on each other. The big lesson from the first wave was that we need to be kind to ourselves: realise it’s OK to cry, to be unproductive, to not “achieve” anything during lockdown other than surviving with our sanity intact.

Maybe the lesson this time around, as we head into what is sure to be a very challenging winter, is to be patient with one another. Our experiences might all be different but that doesn’t make them any less important.