Beijing, Shanghai Reopen Some School Sections

Tens of thousands of students returned to school in Shanghai and Beijing on Monday after months of closures intended to curb the spread of the coronavirus, as major cities on the mainland gradually return to normality.

Shanghai students in their final year of middle and high school returned to classrooms, while only high-school seniors in Beijing were allowed back on campus to prepare for the all-important "gaokao" university entrance exam.

Teenager Meng Xianghao said he was taking extra precautions on his first day back at Beijing's Chenjinglun High School.

"I brought masks, garbage bags and disinfectant," Meng, who had just taken the subway for the first time in months, as children in masks and uniform tracksuits filed past police and officials to enter the school.

A tent set up at the entrance was staffed by a person in a white hazmat suit, while a man wearing a container of disinfectant on his back sprayed the ground by the school gates.

Across the country, schools that have been closed or online-only since January began gradually reopening last month, while virus epicentre Wuhan is set to reopen its high schools on May 6.

Students in the capital will have their temperatures measured at school gates and must show a "green" health code on a special app that calculates a person's infection risk, according to the Ministry of Education.

The ministry said some schools in Beijing had rehearsed the reopening with mock "students" in advance.

Footage from the Communist Party-run Beijing Daily showed some of the city's 49,000 high-school seniors in classrooms on Monday, wearing masks at desks which were spaced evenly apart as teachers welcomed them back with speeches.

A screen at the front showed a photo of President Xi Jinping, as the teacher talked to the class about the significance of overcoming the Covid-19 pandemic.

In some cafeterias, students are assigned fixed seating spots spaced at least one metre apart.

In Shanghai, some schools have set aside special rooms for isolating students with "abnormal temperatures," the ministry said.

Beijing student Xiao Shuhan said he thought some form of social distancing would continue even as classmates and friends reunite.

"We'll no longer put our arms around each other's shoulders," he said.

The long absence from classrooms has added to the pressure on final-year students preparing for the high-stakes "gaokao" exams, which is the only route to the universities and notoriously difficult.

The exams were postponed by one month to July.

Meanwhile the mainland authorities reported three new confirmed coronavirus cases on Sunday, down from 11 a day earlier. No deaths were reported.

It also reported 25 new asymptomatic coronavirus cases on Sunday, compared to 30 a day earlier.

According to the official figures, the mainland now has an accumulated total of 82,830 cases. The total number of deaths stands at 4,633 as of Sunday. (AFP, Reuters)

______________________________