20220525
www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/shanghai-to-reopen-schools-...
Shanghai to Reopen Schools While Beijing Remains in Covid Limbo
(Bloomberg) -- Shanghai will reopen some schools after a three-month shutdown as coronavirus infections there ebb, while attention is shifting to the simmering outbreak in Beijing that’s underscoring the relentless strain of China’s adherence to it’s zero-tolerance Covid strategy.
High school classes in Shanghai are set to resume in-person from June 6 and June 13, depending on the grade, while all other students will continue online learning until the end of the semester, Yang Zhenfeng, an official with Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, said Thursday. It’s the first time students will be back in schools since March 12.
The resumption is a sign that the financial hub’s emergence from a punishing lockdown that stretched for almost two months is gathering pace. Authorities have been unwinding curbs for the city’s 25 million residents, though progress has been slow and some communities have complained their local neighborhood committees are still limiting their movements.
Shanghai reported 338 new cases on Wednesday, down from 387 on Tuesday. No infections were found outside of government-run quarantine. China isolates all Covid cases and their close contacts as a way of stemming transmission.
As Shanghai’s outbreak eases, focus is now firmly on Beijing where persistent infections underscore the challenges of achieving Covid Zero. Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday said China’s economy is in some respects faring worse than in 2020 when the pandemic first emerged, and urged efforts to reduce a soaring unemployment rate.
Beijing reported 45 new cases for Wednesday, compared with 47 on Tuesday. While its daily numbers are still low, the city is still finding a small number of infections in the community -- a key metric used by government officials to determine the severity of the outbreak and whether to ease restrictions. Shanghai began unraveling its lockdown after reporting consecutive days of zero cases in the community.
Beijing’s education commission on Wednesday said in-person school classes will remain suspended due to the outbreak. Middle and elementary school students in the capital will continue to have learn (sic) from home, a spokesman for the city’s education commission said. College and university students will be allowed to return to their home towns.
Meanwhile, Beijing’s health chief Yu Luming, who was under investigation for suspected legal and disciplinary violations, has been removed from his post, the Beijing Daily reported. His ouster comes after Beijing punished a dozen officials over two Covid-19 clusters.
www.globaltimes.cn/page/202205/1266609.shtml
Students in Shanghai to resume on-site classes from June 6 after more than 2 months at home
Students in the second and third years of high school in Shanghai will resume classes on campus from June 6, and students in the final year of junior high school will return to their classrooms from June 13, after having attended online classes for nearly three months.
Other students in primary and middle schools will continue online classes until the end of the semester, Yang Zhenfeng, deputy director of the Shanghai Education Commission, said at Thursday's press briefing.
Yang noted that in-person school resumption is not mandatory, as students are also allowed to continue studying at home.
Ensuring the safety of students is a priority that we need to consider after school resumption, Yang said.
All campuses will be disinfected beforehand, especially those that were used as temporary quarantine centers for COVID-19 positive cases or contacts, Yang said. These campuses have all been closed and disinfected at least three times, according to Yang. All the disinfection will be finished before May 29, so that the campuses have about one week to be ventilated.
Special nucleic acid sampling and detection working teams have also been established to make sure students take nucleic acid tests before classes are over and get the results on the second day before they go to school.
Teachers and students all need to take a COVID-19 antigen test before going to school and receive a nucleic acid test before leaving school, with temperatures checked twice a day, said the authorities.
The authorities also established emergency plans under which students with abnormal nucleic acid test results will be transferred to a central medical observation site to continue studying online. COVID-19 close contacts will be transferred to special quarantine centers and parents will be allowed to accompany them.
Special rooms will also be arranged for the infected students and close contacts to allow them to participate in the local high school and national college entrance examinations, according to local education authorities.
An English teacher in Shanghai who teaches high school students told the Global Times on Thursday on the condition of anonymity that it would be good for students to go back to school to prepare for the college entrance exams, which were postponed due to the Omicron outbreak.
"We have received notices from schools that we should follow self-health monitoring 14 days before classes resume," the teacher said. Teachers are waiting for more details, such as whether students and teachers will be under closed-loop management when they travel from home to school.
The authorities said on Thursday that they are making plans for special-needs students, such as arranging specific vehicles.
A high school senior surnamed Huang told the Global Times on Thursday that she had seen the news and was waiting for detailed plans.
"I'm still a little nervous about the upcoming exam as I have studied online for over two months," Huang said, noting that she is very glad to take in-person classes before the college entrance examination.
Schools can arrange an event for students to return before the end of the semester, such as a graduation ceremony for fifth-graders of elementary school, said Yang, noting that kindergartens, nurseries and childcare institutions should not arrange such event.
Schools will follow staggered management of students and teachers from different classes in order to prevent cross infections, according to the Shanghai education authorities.
www.globaltimes.cn/page/202205/1266583.shtml
Beijing sees decline in infections, epidemic situation ‘controllable’: authorities
After a month of arduous efforts to contain Omicron, the Chinese capital has reported a total of 1,642 cases in this round of the outbreak, but Beijing is now seeing a decline in the number of daily infections at the community level, authorities said on Wednesday. With the overall epidemic situation now controllable, Beijing’s college entrance exams will be held as scheduled.
A positive trend has been observed for the past two days as both daily reported cases and cases found at the community level have declined, Zhong Dongbo, head of the Beijing Municipal Health Commission, said at Wednesday’s press briefing.
The epidemic had previously spread to 15 districts and at its peak, transmission chains in the city reached 13 to 17, but now it has been reduced to three cluster infections.
While the few cluster infections have slightly brought up the epidemic curve, the overall situation is improving, Zhong said.
Most of the early transmission chains have been cut off, and the fight against Omicron has come to a crucial point near the end. Over 80 percent of infections are being found among people put into quarantine.
Primary and middle schools are still required to teach and study from home, authorities said at the press conference. High school and college entrance examinations will be held as scheduled.
20220525
www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/shanghai-to-reopen-schools-...
Shanghai to Reopen Schools While Beijing Remains in Covid Limbo
(Bloomberg) -- Shanghai will reopen some schools after a three-month shutdown as coronavirus infections there ebb, while attention is shifting to the simmering outbreak in Beijing that’s underscoring the relentless strain of China’s adherence to it’s zero-tolerance Covid strategy.
High school classes in Shanghai are set to resume in-person from June 6 and June 13, depending on the grade, while all other students will continue online learning until the end of the semester, Yang Zhenfeng, an official with Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, said Thursday. It’s the first time students will be back in schools since March 12.
The resumption is a sign that the financial hub’s emergence from a punishing lockdown that stretched for almost two months is gathering pace. Authorities have been unwinding curbs for the city’s 25 million residents, though progress has been slow and some communities have complained their local neighborhood committees are still limiting their movements.
Shanghai reported 338 new cases on Wednesday, down from 387 on Tuesday. No infections were found outside of government-run quarantine. China isolates all Covid cases and their close contacts as a way of stemming transmission.
As Shanghai’s outbreak eases, focus is now firmly on Beijing where persistent infections underscore the challenges of achieving Covid Zero. Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday said China’s economy is in some respects faring worse than in 2020 when the pandemic first emerged, and urged efforts to reduce a soaring unemployment rate.
Beijing reported 45 new cases for Wednesday, compared with 47 on Tuesday. While its daily numbers are still low, the city is still finding a small number of infections in the community -- a key metric used by government officials to determine the severity of the outbreak and whether to ease restrictions. Shanghai began unraveling its lockdown after reporting consecutive days of zero cases in the community.
Beijing’s education commission on Wednesday said in-person school classes will remain suspended due to the outbreak. Middle and elementary school students in the capital will continue to have learn (sic) from home, a spokesman for the city’s education commission said. College and university students will be allowed to return to their home towns.
Meanwhile, Beijing’s health chief Yu Luming, who was under investigation for suspected legal and disciplinary violations, has been removed from his post, the Beijing Daily reported. His ouster comes after Beijing punished a dozen officials over two Covid-19 clusters.
www.globaltimes.cn/page/202205/1266609.shtml
Students in Shanghai to resume on-site classes from June 6 after more than 2 months at home
Students in the second and third years of high school in Shanghai will resume classes on campus from June 6, and students in the final year of junior high school will return to their classrooms from June 13, after having attended online classes for nearly three months.
Other students in primary and middle schools will continue online classes until the end of the semester, Yang Zhenfeng, deputy director of the Shanghai Education Commission, said at Thursday's press briefing.
Yang noted that in-person school resumption is not mandatory, as students are also allowed to continue studying at home.
Ensuring the safety of students is a priority that we need to consider after school resumption, Yang said.
All campuses will be disinfected beforehand, especially those that were used as temporary quarantine centers for COVID-19 positive cases or contacts, Yang said. These campuses have all been closed and disinfected at least three times, according to Yang. All the disinfection will be finished before May 29, so that the campuses have about one week to be ventilated.
Special nucleic acid sampling and detection working teams have also been established to make sure students take nucleic acid tests before classes are over and get the results on the second day before they go to school.
Teachers and students all need to take a COVID-19 antigen test before going to school and receive a nucleic acid test before leaving school, with temperatures checked twice a day, said the authorities.
The authorities also established emergency plans under which students with abnormal nucleic acid test results will be transferred to a central medical observation site to continue studying online. COVID-19 close contacts will be transferred to special quarantine centers and parents will be allowed to accompany them.
Special rooms will also be arranged for the infected students and close contacts to allow them to participate in the local high school and national college entrance examinations, according to local education authorities.
An English teacher in Shanghai who teaches high school students told the Global Times on Thursday on the condition of anonymity that it would be good for students to go back to school to prepare for the college entrance exams, which were postponed due to the Omicron outbreak.
"We have received notices from schools that we should follow self-health monitoring 14 days before classes resume," the teacher said. Teachers are waiting for more details, such as whether students and teachers will be under closed-loop management when they travel from home to school.
The authorities said on Thursday that they are making plans for special-needs students, such as arranging specific vehicles.
A high school senior surnamed Huang told the Global Times on Thursday that she had seen the news and was waiting for detailed plans.
"I'm still a little nervous about the upcoming exam as I have studied online for over two months," Huang said, noting that she is very glad to take in-person classes before the college entrance examination.
Schools can arrange an event for students to return before the end of the semester, such as a graduation ceremony for fifth-graders of elementary school, said Yang, noting that kindergartens, nurseries and childcare institutions should not arrange such event.
Schools will follow staggered management of students and teachers from different classes in order to prevent cross infections, according to the Shanghai education authorities.
www.globaltimes.cn/page/202205/1266583.shtml
Beijing sees decline in infections, epidemic situation ‘controllable’: authorities
After a month of arduous efforts to contain Omicron, the Chinese capital has reported a total of 1,642 cases in this round of the outbreak, but Beijing is now seeing a decline in the number of daily infections at the community level, authorities said on Wednesday. With the overall epidemic situation now controllable, Beijing’s college entrance exams will be held as scheduled.
A positive trend has been observed for the past two days as both daily reported cases and cases found at the community level have declined, Zhong Dongbo, head of the Beijing Municipal Health Commission, said at Wednesday’s press briefing.
The epidemic had previously spread to 15 districts and at its peak, transmission chains in the city reached 13 to 17, but now it has been reduced to three cluster infections.
While the few cluster infections have slightly brought up the epidemic curve, the overall situation is improving, Zhong said.
Most of the early transmission chains have been cut off, and the fight against Omicron has come to a crucial point near the end. Over 80 percent of infections are being found among people put into quarantine.
Primary and middle schools are still required to teach and study from home, authorities said at the press conference. High school and college entrance examinations will be held as scheduled.