After weeks of postponing the start of classes due to the coronavirus pandemic, the first students have gone back to school in South Korea.
Hundreds of thousands of high school students were the first to re-enter the classroom on Wednesday, South Korean broadcasters reported.
The teachers welcomed the pupils, who had to wear protective masks, at school entrances with clinical thermometers and hand disinfectant.
In some schools, the tables in the classrooms were separated with plexiglass panels.
In the next few weeks, classes for the lower grades at secondary school as well as for primary and middle school students are due to begin again.
The school reopenings, which were originally planned for the beginning of March, had been postponed several times due to the coronavirus pandemic.
However, the start of school was not without problems everywhere.
In the western coastal city of Incheon, students were sent home from 66 schools before noon, Yonhap reported.
Two students tested positive for the coronavirus on the same day after visiting a karaoke facility.
Meanwhile, South Korean health authorities have expressed concern as the country reported the highest daily increase in novel coronavirus infections in nine days on Wednesday, Yonhap news agency reported.
On Tuesday, 32 new cases were detected, bringing the country’s total to 11,110, according to the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).
Clusters have emerged in the capital city Seoul, including a new one at the major Samsung hospital, where on Tuesday four nurses tested positive for the virus.
Contact-tracing is currently under way for everyone who came in contact with the nurses.
Itaewon, a popular entertainment district in Seoul, became the centre of South Korea’s fight against COVID-19, the potentially fatal respiratory disease caused by the virus, after an infected man visited multiple night clubs on May 2.
Thousands of others were at the clubs at the time he attended.
So far, 193 people who were at the clubs – or people they later came into contact with – have tested positive for coronavirus.
Though the development sparked worries that it could cause a new wave of infections, the number of linked cases has not reached the level authorities feared.
South Korean officials said they relied on intensive testing to control the outbreak, testing up to 60,000 people in relation to the Itaewon incident.
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The country’s death toll did not increase overnight, and stands at 263.
South Korea has largely managed to control its coronavirus outbreak following a peak at the end of February, during which it was recording more than 900 cases a day. (dpa/NAN)