Trinity residents ordered to leave by tomorrow evening

Only students who fit certain criteria are permitted to stay

All students must now leave their rooms on campus, in Trinity Hall, the Binary Hub and Kavanagh Court unless they fit specific criteria, Trinity announced this evening.

From 8pm tomorrow, all students living in Ireland must return home within Ireland and “stay at home until notified otherwise,” College said in an email to Trinity students. College told students with a home overseas to aim to have left their Trinity accommodation by 5pm Wednesday on March 18.

“You must take all your belongings with you. If you have already vacated, on a temporary basis and not removed all your belongings, you will need to organise to collect your belongings by 6pm on Friday,” the email read. Students will be refunded on a pro rata basis.

“For a variety of reasons,” College said, “some students cannot return home.  As always, we will work with these students to ensure they can remain on campus with our support.”

Students who fit certain criteria are permitted to remain on campus. This list includes students who faces homelessness, students who have the virus or are currently self-isolating, if their family at home has the virus, students who have immigration, travel, and/or visa restrictions, students whose home is in an area with extremely limited internet connectivity, and PhD students who must conduct lab or other research on campus that’s required for their thesis.

College said that the order for residents to leave was “one of the most difficult decisions to date”. It follows the announcement that three more cases of coronavirus have been reported in the Trinity community, bringing the total to eight.

“This decision has been taken because large, highly concentrated numbers of students living on campus will increase the chance of rapid transmission of the coronavirus. Our capacity to quarantine those who are sick and those who have been exposed is extremely limited,” College said.

“The more students who leave campus, the more we can decrease the potential health risk to the larger community. The more students who leave, the easier it will be to care for those who may become ill and to manage the eventual impact of this virus.”

Aisling Grace

Aisling Grace was the Editor-in-Chief of the 66th Volume of Trinity News. She was also formerly Online Editor and Deputy News Editor.