Impacts of COVID-19 on Higher Education

Coronavirus: How lockdown is being lifted across Europe
Schools will not reopen until September

University of Florence: Towards the New Academic Year (Lexis; login required)
What will the new academic year be like? The University is organizing to adopt an articulated model of instruction, in consideration of the health situation. The lectures will be held in the classroom according to the timetable set in the academic calendar and with the presence of a number of students established in relation to the capacity and the rules of physical distancing that will be in force in the autumn.

Coronavirus in Ireland: Eliminate Covid-19 before relaxing lockdown, scientists urge
[N]ew evidence from Italy suggested that facemasks increase social distancing, rather than hinder it. The paper, from Massimo Marchiori in the University of Padua, suggests that masks work as a signal to others to keep their distance, and that these cues help to ensure that social distancing takes place. The study says: "Wearing a mask triggers this sort of repulsive effect, 'pushing farther' people and changing their common behaviour so to gain social distance (even by stepping out of sidewalks)."

Back to school: what lessons can UK learn from rest of Europe?
Italy: Schools in Italy finished for the summer break earlier this week and the education ministry is working to establish under which criteria they will reopen from September. Italy was the first European country to close schools and universities on 4 March, days before the national coronavirus lockdown.

Lots of paperwork during Italy's pandemic
Bureaucratic barriers could wreck Italy’s Relaunch program introduced as a rigorous lockdown is eased gradually, provided Covid cases don’t resurge.  Performances in closed theatres will resume from mid-June and the soccer championship from June 20. Universities and schools, which were virtual until the end of the school year on June 5, will reopen physically only in September at the end of the summer holidays.  So far it has been an uncertain Relaunch.  …  Italy is also divided over whether it should take the opportunity to install a juster, more egalitarian, eco-sustainable society or swiftly restore what was functioning before the lockdown to avoid an anticipated 10 per cent drop in GNP.

Back to school: what lessons can UK learn from rest of Europe?; Schools are reopening with staggered classes, distancing and 'protective bubbles'
Italy:A definitive date for the reopening of schools is yet to be set, but when they do reopen they will probably need to maintain a 1-metre physical distance rule in classrooms, ensure that children over six wear masks, and deny entrance to anyone with a temperature of more than 37.5C. School opening hours might also be reduced and lessons staggered.

Italian students face unprecedented proof of university access (Lexis; login required)
Due to the pandemic that forced the suspension of classes on March 4, a few days before the total closure of the country, the decision was made that all students would be admitted to the university entrance test, and therefore it will be almost half a million young people who will be screened until early July.

These examinations consisted in the past of several written tests of the different subjects, an oral examination and a topical topic conducted in three days, but the emergency has forced only a dreaded 60-minute oral test. …

The exam will last approximately 60 minutes marked by several phases: the first is the presentation of a document by the student already sent by email with a topic assigned by the teachers; then a multidisciplinary discussion on the subjects prepared by the committee; the student's work on his experience of work-school alternation (work in internships and face-to-face teaching) will be examined and, finally, they will have to answer a number of questions about citizenship and the Constitution.

All students must show self-declaration proving their health and is not quarantined. Body temperature will not be taken at the entrance of the buildings, nor will it be mandatory to wear gloves, but it will be mandatory to use the disinfectant gels made available by the schools themselves.

Italy And Covid-19: Impact On Consumer Sector (Lexis; login required)

The Latest: Pence urges US governors to tell of 'good news'
Italy has counted 237,290 COVID-19 cases since the and 34,371 deaths. The 26 deaths registered since Sunday is the lowest one-day number since early March, before the entire country went into lockdown to contain spread of infection. Italy has been gradually removing lockdown restrictions, with movie houses and theaters able to reopen on Monday. But schools won’t be back this academic year, with pupils expected back in classrooms sometime in September.

Italian universities admit refugee students 
Eleven Italian universities are joining forces to launch university 'corridors' to offer to refugee students coming from countries at war or affected by calamities the opportunity of continuing to pursue their studies in Italy, UNHCR announced in a statement.  The UN Refugee Agency signed a protocol with the universities, the foreign ministry, Italian Catholic charity Caritas, the Valdensian community and the Gandhi Cahrity. The project, which is a continuation of a pilot project that kicked off in 2019 with the participation of two universities and six students, will involve 20 refugee students who are currently in Ethiopia. They will be supported to pursue a two-year university degree and integrate in campus life. 

Coronavirus: How lockdown is being lifted across Europe 
Schools will not reopen until 1 September 

Italy’s schools reopening plan rejected 
Italian premier Giuseppe Conte has appealed for "a little more time" after regional governments and Italy's association of principals rejected proposed guidelines for the reopening of the country's schools in September following the covid-19 lockdown. 

Coronavirus hit Italy in December 2019, say scientists 
Scientists in Italy have found traces of the new coronavirus in wastewater collected from Milan and Turin in December 2019 — suggesting COVID-19 was already circulating in northern Italy before China reported the first cases.  The Italian National Institute of Health looked at 40 sewage samples collected from wastewater treatment plants in northern Italy between October 2019 and February 2020. An analysis released on Thursday said samples taken in Milan and Turin on Dec.18 showed the presence of the SARS-Cov-2 virus.