It’s back to school for millions of kids
Europe, China, Russia reopen classes after Covid-19 lockdowns; human trials in US for AstraZeneca vaccine
WUHAN/PARIS/TORONTO: Millions of children in Europe, China, Russia and several other regions are back at school this week after months of Covid-19 lockdowns even as cases and fatalities continued to climb.
Wuhan in China, the original epicentre of the pandemic, welcomed pupils wearing face masks to schools and kindergartens for the first time in seven months.
Nearly 1.4 million students resumed classes at some 2,800 kindergartens, primary and middle schools across the city, following the reopening of high schools in May. Schools have drawn up plans to switch back to online teaching should new outbreaks emerge, officials said.
Shanghai reopened schools in May, and capital Beijing, which recently saw a local outbreak, said it will resume all schools including kindergartens in September. China has not reported any new local transmissions of the coronavirus in recent days.
Millions of mask-wearing European children also headed back to school on Tuesday after summer holidays. Schools reopened in Russia, Ukraine, Belgium and France.
Russia’s 17 million school children returned to class even as the country confirmed it had passed one million infections, fourth highest in the world.
New York City, however, delayed the start of its school year by several days to give teachers more time to prepare for having students back in classrooms.
As the race for a vaccine continued, AstraZeneca said it has begun a large-scale human trial of its vaccine in the US. The company also expanded its agreement with cell therapy firm
Oxford Biomedica to mass-produce its potential vaccine.
Canada abandoned its first clinical trials for a vaccine after China blocked shipment from the Chinese company CanSino Biologics, which was involved in the collaboration. Instead, Canada, has inked deals with two American companies to provide more than 100 million doses of potential vaccines.
Hong Kong on Tuesday launched a free mass-testing drive for its 7.5 million residents, amid fears that China is using the scheme to harvest DNA.