Hundreds of thousands of high school seniors in South Korea had their temperature checked and rubbed their hands with sanitizer as they returned to school Wednesday, many for the first time since late last year after their new term was repeatedly pushed back by the coronavirus pandemic.
Students and teachers were required to wear masks and some schools installed plastic partitions around desks. In a reminder that the so-called “new normal” was anything but, more than 60 schools near Seoul quickly sent their students home as a precaution after two students who hadn’t even attended class were found infected.
A phased reopening of South Korean schools is expected to be complete by June 8, and comes as the number of new infections in the