Liverpool University faces calls to scrap face-to-face teaching after 87 Covid cases
The University of Liverpool is facing calls to abandon in-person teaching when term begins after there were 87 positive Covid-19 tests of staff and students at the institution in the past week.
Academics are concerned a return to face-to-face teaching could "exponentially increase infection rates" when freshers' week and seminars resume in the upcoming weeks.
It comes as the University and College Union (UCU) has criticised Boris Johnson's call to keep universities open after the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK passed 400,000.
Students have begun arriving on campuses across the country and they have been warned not to attend large freshers' week parties due to the ban on social gatherings of more than six people in England.
In many institutions, seminars are due to be taught in-person - with a range of social distancing measures in place - while freshers' week activities and lectures are mainly virtual.
The UCU branches from the University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University and Liverpool Hope University are calling for a guarantee that vulnerable staff will not be forced to come onto campus.
Martyn Moss, UCU regional official, said: "Liverpool's universities have to immediately heed the call from staff and halt unnecessary in-person teaching."
He added: "Without urgent action, it will be impossible for universities to avoid becoming incubators of Covid and university communities becoming transmission hotspots."
On Tuesday, the Prime Minister said the Government will ensure universities stay open as he said "nothing is more important than the education, health and wellbeing of our young people".
Jo Grady, general secretary of the UCU, said: "For Boris Johnson to say that universities should stay open whilst we are seeing reports of Covid outbreaks on campuses throughout the UK is an abdication of responsibility and it shows how disconnected he is from the facts on the ground.
"Our institutions never closed, even during the national lockdown. Staff moved teaching online and continued to deliver for their students and support them.
"The Prime Minister should go back to that arrangement and instruct all staff to work from home."
Professor Louise Kenny, executive pro-vice-chancellor for the faculty of health and life sciences at the University of Liverpool, has said face-to-face teaching is "an essential component" of many degree courses.
She said: "Like other members of Liverpool's population, university students and staff members are also experiencing more Covid-19 cases.
"Our investment in an on-campus testing facility for staff and students displaying symptoms means that we are in a position to report on the numbers in our community who test positive and, importantly, to act quickly to stop the spread.
"We continue to work closely with Liverpool City Council's public health team and Public Health England and all those who have tested positive, together with their close contacts, have been informed that they now need to self-isolate in line with national guidance."