고3, 오늘 등교…80일 만에 교문 열려

It's been 80 days since schools shut in South Korea due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
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.
A mixture of excitement and concern is in the air,... but for more, we go live to our Jang Tae-hyun.
He is standing by at a high school in Seoul.
Taehyun,... it's 7AM still a bit early for students to arrive at school,... but what are you seeing so far?
Hi Semin, I'm in front of Seoul High School.
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.
So today, schools are only open for high school seniors, in their third year.
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.
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.
All students are required to have their body temperatures checked.
Teachers and staff should all wear face masks during classes and desks will be apart from another.
They will also be eating separately.
Se-min, this is a step towards returning to normalcy,... so a lot of attention is being focused on this return to school.

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.
Right.
That's the reason why officials are closely monitoring every step today.
Quarantine and disinfection officials have swept through every corner of schools prior to this re-opening.
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.
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.
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.
But for now, that's all I got at this hour, but I'll be back with more details later.
Se-min?
Thank you for the update, Taehyun