Forever Keele 15
Keele students collect food to
help community amid coronavirus
outbreak
Students at Keele University have
been collecting food to donate to
the most vulnerable people in the
community to help ensure their stocks
don’t run low amid the coronavirus
pandemic outbreak.
The scheme, run by the Keele
Students’ Union, helped students who
were moving home from their campus
accommodation to donate their nonperishable
food to the community and
the Newcastle-Staffs Trussell Trust
Food Bank.
The student’s union also donated
large quantities of fresh food from their
canteen to local organisations and
charities that help the most vulnerable
people in the community.
Every year Keele students take part in
The Great Donate initiative, a scheme
whereby students donate usable goods
such as non-perishable food and
household items that they don’t wish
to take with them when they move out
of halls of residence. Last year, Keele
students donated an estimated 5,800
meals to Newcastle-Staffs Trussell
Trust Food Bank, and in the last six
years, they donated approximately
10 tonnes of food in total equating to
23,200 meals.
SUPPORTING OUR
PARTNERS
Coronavirus vaccine to be
manufactured at Keele University
A vaccine to combat Covid-19 is set to
be manufactured at Keele University,
following an agreement between Cobra
Biologics and AstraZeneca UK.
Cobra, which has two facilities on the
University’s Science and Innovation
Park, has signed a supply agreement
with the global pharmaceutical giant
to manufacture vaccine candidate
AZD1222, previously known as
ChAdOX1 n-CoV-19.
The production agreement is part of
a programme with the University of
Oxford to ensure broad and equitable
supply of the vaccine throughout the
world, at no profit during the Covid-19
pandemic.
The agreement is a further
development of Cobra’s announcement
in March 2020, where it confirmed that
it was working as part of a consortium
with the Jenner Institute, University of
Oxford, and others, to rapidly develop,
scale-up and produce a vaccine
against Covid-19.
Supporting businesses through the
pandemic
Keele University is committed to
supporting all areas of the local
community in the global fight against
Covid-19.
This support ranges from the
significant number of Keele medical
and nursing students, who have
chosen to serve on the front-line
earlier than initially planned, in order
to directly help with the national crisis,
through to the School of Pharmacy
responding to a request from the
local NHS Trust to manufacture World
Health Organisation-approved hand
sanitiser in scaled-up quantities.
Other key interventions include
academics conducting research into
the infection, students providing
support to vulnerable and ‘shielded’
groups, and business partners working
in collaboration to produce vaccines
and ventilators.
As well as these significant activities,
the University is also continuing
to support the Stoke-on-Trent and
Staffordshire business community
through a number of new initiatives
running alongside the existing
Business Gateway programmes.
Keele experts advising national
policymakers on improving road
safety during and after lockdown
Criminology experts from Keele
University are studying the impact of
the coronavirus lockdown on Britain’s
road network, in a bid to make the
roads safer during and after the
lockdown.
As the country entered lockdown to
help limit the spread of coronavirus,
traffic levels dropped by around 70%
while people work at home and avoid
unnecessary journeys. But despite
this reduction in traffic levels, evidence
suggests that drivers who are still on
the roads are speeding more.
To make the roads safer during
the lockdown period, as well as to
ensure that they are safe when the
measures are lifted, Senior Lecturer
in Criminology Dr Helen Wells and
PhD student Craig Arnold have been
asked to analyse data from Highways
England and police reports, in order to
understand the impact of the lockdown
on traffic volumes and road users’
behaviour.
They have been asked by Highways
England and the National Police Chiefs
Council to study a number of factors
relating to road offences recorded
during the lockdown, including the type
of vehicle involved, the type of offence
recorded, and the time and date of the
offending, in order to compare this with
pre-lockdown roads policing data.
All news was relevant
to the crisis at the time
of writing. To read more
about Keele’s civic
response to Covid-19,
visit: www.keele.ac.uk/
coronavirus/response/