OXFORD University will be holding exams as normal despite national lockdown.

Schools, colleges and universities will be open as usual from Thursday, when the country will be put into a four-week lockdown to halt the spread of coronavirus.

In a letter to chemistry students, seen by this paper, the head of the department and pro-vice-chancellor of engineering said that exams would continue as planned, ‘including those taking place from Thursday onwards’.

In the email Martin Williams and Nicholas Green explained that the university case numbers ‘are steady’ and in the same ‘position’ as two weeks ago, when in-person exams went ahead safely.

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They added: “University monitoring of cases shows that the limited transmission we are seeing is overwhelmingly happening within households and that the Covid-secure teaching and assessment environments the university has set up present a very low risk of transmission. We hope this offers some reassurance and we wish you every success in your exams.”

One university student, who sat exams earlier in the week, said that they were wearing masks and sitting 2m apart.

Oxford Mail:

Last month the university was slammed after crowds of students were seen ignoring social distancing rules as they celebrated matriculation, which marks formal admission to the university.

Yesterday it was revealed that coronavirus cases have gone up by more than 200 for a second week at the university.

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In the seven days to Friday, October 30, there were 212 new positive tests confirmed by the university’s own testing service.

Since the university started testing on August 20, there have been a total of 708 positive results.

The university is working with Public Health England to work out why the numbers do not match the city's latest figures.