With coronavirus cases still high in Nottingham and surrounding areas, the county has moved into negotiations with the government to go into Tier 3 – the highest stage in the government’s new system for local areas.
With the official announcement likely only days away, we wanted to see what NTU students think about it.
Second year Psychology student Emma Dilworth, 19, said she could understand the need for new restrictions.
She said: “With how bad COVID is in Notts, I can see why”.
However, she later described it as “being awful on the social aspect of my life”.
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Ryan Arbon, 21, a second year Business Management and Entrepreneurship student, said that he was “bored of COVID”.
“It’s worse than Brexit”, he added.
“Different parts of the country going on lockdown months after we were told to eat out to help out is a joke.
“They knew students would be going back to university.
“The Tories really have shown that all they care about is the economy and even that is down the drain.”
Alex Jacklin, 19, a second year Politics and International Relations student, said that ‘we now have to learn to live with coronavirus’.
“We cannot put businesses, jobs, people’s mental health at risk because of this virus anymore”.
Alex also called out for universities to increase the support they are giving, with on site testing and better student support.
However, he did accept that “it was inevitable that Nottingham would be placed into tier three with students flaunting the rules”.
While Tier 3 has not yet officially been announced, the Police and Crime Commissioner Paddy Tipping said that “the expectation is we will go into tier three” and that it “could be on Monday” when the new restrictions will be enforced.
This would mean that pubs and bars not serving substantial meals would have to close, and people could not longer meet others in a private or beer garden.
The government declared on Tuesday, October 20, that Nottinghamshire was one of the local authorities that it is in negotiations with for the area to move into tier three
Nottingham has dropped to fifth in England for rate of coronavirus, now 561.4 per 100,000 people according to the government latest data released.
The figures show the England average is 187.4 in week to October 19.
By Kieran Burt
Feature image credit: Olimpia Zagnat / Platform (modified)