고3, 오늘 등교…80일 만에 교문 열려<br /><br />It's been 80 days since schools shut in South Korea due to the COVID-19 outbreak.<br />Starting today,... high schools across the nation will physically re-open, allowing students back into classrooms after the virus delayed the start of the academic calendar.<br />A mixture of excitement and concern is in the air,... but for more, we go live to our Jang Tae-hyun.<br />He is standing by at a high school in Seoul.<br />Taehyun,... it's 7AM still a bit early for students to arrive at school,... but what are you seeing so far?<br />Hi Semin, I'm in front of Seoul High School.<br />And as you said, it's a bit early so I haven't seen many students yet, but I've been seeing some teachers and staff filtering in.<br />So today, schools are only open for high school seniors, in their third year.<br />The big reason for that is because they face a tight academic schedule until they sit the college entrance exam, which has already been pushed back to early December.<br />Some 450-thousand seniors will be heading to classrooms nationwide today, and the reopening of schools for remaining grades will take place in stages through June 8th.<br />All students are required to have their body temperatures checked.<br />Teachers and staff should all wear face masks during classes and desks will be apart from another.<br />They will also be eating separately.<br />Se-min, this is a step towards returning to normalcy,... so a lot of attention is being focused on this return to school.<br /><br />You bring up a good point, Taehyun, this is an important day. It's a major step for South Korean officials in charge of getting the country back to a semblance of normalcy, after shifting to the "everyday life quarantine" stage.<br />Right.<br />That's the reason why officials are closely monitoring every step today.<br />Quarantine and disinfection officials have swept through every corner of schools prior to this re-opening.<br />And if a student or anyone within the school grounds is over 37-point degrees Celsius, he or she will immediately be transferred to a separate room, a school nurse will check their temperature once again and they will be sent home.<br />Officials are doing their utmost to avoid an additional surge amid lingering fears over new cases spotted across the nation over the past couple of weeks.<br />And remember, we've already seen similar cases in France and Singapore where they decided to open schools but were forced to close again, after a spike in new cases.<br />But for now, that's all I got at this hour, but I'll be back with more details later.<br />Se-min?<br />Thank you for the update, Taehyun<br />
