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SEOUL (Reuters) – Nearly half a million South Korean students nervously started a hypercompetitive college entrance exam on Thursday, with COVID-19 students taking the exam at the hospital and others separated by transparent barriers.
South Korea is battling a third wave of coronavirus infections, forcing authorities to take stringent measures to ensure that all students can safely take the test, seen as a defining event in the lives of senior students. year of high school to earn a degree that could help you land a better job in Asia’s fourth largest economy.
Police and school officials guarded some 31,000 testing sites across the country, which in normal years are often filled with praying parents and cheering squads distributing hot drinks and snacks.
“It’s my second test, and I just wanted to do it despite the risks of contracting the coronavirus. That’s all I was thinking about coming here,” 19-year-old Jeon Young-jin told Reuters in front of a test site. in Seoul.
Some 35 people who tested positive for COVID-19 sat for the test in designated hospitals, while special places were provided to help another 404 who are in self-isolation.
Supervisors of confirmed and suspected cases were required to wear protective gear and collect examination papers in plastic bags and clean them before handing them over to staff outside.
At a high school in central Seoul, students lined up for temperature checks and disinfection before entering the venue, and transparent barriers were installed on all desks, according to video released by the Seoul Metropolitan Bureau of Education.
Won Seon-hun, the father of a high school senior, said he hadn’t even eaten with his son for the past week, though he downplayed outdoor activity due to concerns about the coronavirus.
“My wife bought all the groceries online and I never went out except to work, not for friends gatherings, I just stayed home,” Won said after saying goodbye to his son.
The test is a major event in South Korea, where companies and the stock market open later than usual to reduce test takers’ traffic, while flights from airports are suspended for a short period during a test of oral comprehension.
The annual review came as South Korea grapples with a resurgence in coronavirus outbreaks, with the number of daily cases hovering around 500 in the past two weeks, a level not seen since March.
The government has tightened restrictions on social distancing and has declared a special two-week anti-virus period before the exam.
The Korea Disease Prevention and Control Agency (KDCA) reported 540 new cases on Friday, including 516 domestic and 24 imported infections.
The country’s total count increased to 35,703, with 529 deaths.
(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin, Soohyun Mah, Daewoung Kim, and Minwoo Park; Editing by Michael Perry)
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