COVID-19 Guidance for Grad Students Living in Private Accommodation.

To all students who are living in private accommodation

Thank you for confirming your plans to live in private accommodation not provided by St Catharine’s College. This will help the College to start implementing precautions in response to COVID-19 across our community, regardless of living arrangements, and to ask for your help where this is needed.

Households in the UK, including students, are required to self-isolate collectively in the event that a member of a household:

• Experiences COVID-19 symptoms – all other household members need to stay at home and not leave the house until everyone with symptoms tests negative for COVID-19 (or for 14 days from the onset of symptoms in the meantime);
or
• Is tested for COVID-19 and receives a positive result – all other household members need to stay at home and not leave the house for 14 days from the day the test was taken.

If this happens to your household, please contact covid19@caths.cam.ac.uk so that the College can send you an overview of what academic, pastoral and other support is available (see the latest version attached).

How you can help: Following the latest official requirements for all households Please familiarise yourself with and respect the latest official requirements for households, including:

• What you can or cannot do as part of your household
• Self-isolation arrangements

How you can help: Preparing in case of self-isolation as a household

• Consider if there are any essential items that you would need and ensure you have a supply for at least a few weeks at a time (e.g. contact lens solution, prescription medicines).
• Identify contacts in Cambridge who you would be able to ask for support, from someone who can call you regularly to check how you are, to running urgent errands in the city:
  • This support network may include other students at St Catharine’s or individuals from the wider Cambridge community, whatever would work best for you.
  • Think about reaching out to them to confirm they would be willing to help in this way.
• Let us know if you are concerned that it might not be possible for whatever reason to contact others for support. Please get in touch with the College at covid19@caths.cam.ac.uk so that we can explore different options with you.

If you have any questions, please do get in touch.

Best wishes,

Bethan Lewis, Student Services Manager

With full support from: Jack Stebbing, JCR President Jess Forsdyke, MCR Co-President Souradip Mookerjee, MCR Co-President