Goes to show that it is so important to keep as many revenue streams open as possible. That's why, for example, research students must be allowed to continue working - it's ultimately low risk for the vast majority and some factions of Universities need to be allowed to reopen as soon as possible, or everything will grind to a halt and we can expect to follow the path that Australian institutions could be forced to take.
I think the realisation that this virus is low risk for the vast majority of researchers is important in getting things open again. In the department I work(ed) in, probably 80-90 % of the building's occupants were under 35. Admittedly, many of the crucial support and maintenance staff are older, but if measures could be put in place to protect them, one would hope that the rest of us could resume work. Disappointingly it doesn't appear that my university is going to go down that route, rather it seems to be going down a route of restrictions which are so stringent they prevent us doing the work we need to do if the university is to survive in its current form.
Any University students - how well has your institution been communicating with you throughout this crisis? How functional do you think online learning would be come September? I'd be very interested to hear from different institutions. I think we could make ours work for a short time as long as as much learning in person takes place - many need access to labs and University computers for a start.
Communication from high level in my university has been frequent, but largely just empty possibilities and reassurances that they will reassess the situation in the future. Lower down the chain of command, communication has been much more useful, but I still haven't recieved anything I could say was good news or gave me any hope that the situation will improve!