Wits students lose bid to self-quarantine on campus

The High Court in Johannesburg has refused to allow two University of Witwatersrand students to remain on campus after they and their peers were this week told to evacuate as South Africa continues to try to curtail the spread of Covid-19.

Judge Sharise Weiner this morning said that if she were to grant the students the relief they were seeking, “the university would have to extend such relief to all students in residence” and that this would “defeat the very object the university and the country is striving to achieve”.

She also said it would be “logistically impossible” to allow students to remain in their residences during this period because the cooking and cleaning staff would not be working.

The university this week announced the mid-term break would be brought forward and that its recess would begin on Tuesday. This after a medical student who had been in contact with a person infected with Covid-19 herself tested positive for the coronavirus.

The announcement prompted law students Lerato Moela and Matsobane Shaun Matlhwana to rush to court in hopes of securing an order allowing them to self-isolate at their residences.

On Wednesday, they argued before Judge Weiner that sending home potentially infected students could place their communities at risk.

But in handing down her ruling, the judge said it was important to highlight that neither Moela nor Matlhwana alleged that they had any symptoms.

“Or that they were in contact with the one student enrolled at the medical campus that has thus far tested positive,” she added.

Moela and Matlhwana had initially asked the court to order that the university test all students before sending them home. They later abandoned this request but, Judge Weiner addressed it nonetheless.

“Everybody in the world is on the same page as the applicants. We all have had meetings or lectures or been in contact with other people who may or may not have Covid-19,” she said, “The suggestions by the applicants that the way in which universities should deal with this – firstly by testing all students in residences before they are sent home – is simply not feasible. There are approximately 6,000 students in residence. One has to take into consideration that at present, only one student in the medical school – which is two kilometres from the main campus of the university – has tested positive for Covid-19.”

The judge also pointed to the World Health Organisation’s warning earlier this morning that “Africa must wake up and prepare for the worst”.

“Not only South Africa, but the world, is caught in a maelstrom unprecedented in most of our lifetimes,” she said, “The containment of Covid-19 is a matter of significant national importance. The threat of Covid-19 overwhelming the South African health system has enjoyed an extraordinary amount of publicity and it is essential that everyone do whatever is required to prevent the health system from being overwhelmed and in assisting the flattening of infection rates.”

Moela said outside court that he and Matlhwana would abide by the judge’s ruling.

“The reason why we came to court is that we believe in the rule of law … We are going to abide by the decision,” he said.

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