UK students angered by university lockdowns

02:47

Around 40 universities across the UK have suffered outbreaks of COVID-19, meaning thousands have started their student life in self-isolation.

Three of the worst-hit universities have been Manchester Metropolitan, Glasgow University in Scotland and Queen's University Belfast.

As first-year students are confined to their rooms, parents have been bringing in food parcels and some teenagers have made plans to leave and go home.

Students at Manchester Metropolitan university use their window to demonstrate their views on the restrictions in place. /AFP

University authorities have stressed they are doing everything they can to normalize the experience, while organizing online learning sessions.

However, there is already widespread talk of students demanding refunds for the fees already paid and accusations that youngsters shouldn't have been sold an unrealistic college experience.

Jo Grady, general secretary of the Universities and Colleges Union, said government modeling predicted a spike when the students went back. She says plans to reopen universities were always going to be a catastrophe and that the government ignored every warning.

Measures are almost certain to intensify this week. The 10 p.m. pub curfew in the cities has only led to more people on the streets rather than fewer and the number of positive cases in London and the North East region are rising quickly.

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But Downing Street is still said to be wary of public resistance to more restrictions. Anti-lockdown demonstrations this weekend drew larger crowds than in the past and clashes with the police are becoming more common.

Nevertheless, localized lockdowns across huge parts of the country are now expected and the public, by and large, are getting ready for drastic changes to their lives again. The government still wants to avoid a full national lockdown if at all possible.

But while much of the debate over lockdown measures is loud and at times heated, particularly in the backbenches of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's own Conservative Party, the majority of the British public supports the cautious approach, according to the latest opinion polls.