SEOUL– High school seniors and teachers will get vaccinated starting July 19, and cram school teachers will be eligible for vaccine shots next week, the education ministry said Thursday, as the country has reported a record-breaking surge in infections.
The Ministry of Education said at a briefing the vaccinations will start later this month for high school seniors, teachers and staff members and those who will take the national college entrance exam slated for Nov. 18.
A survey released by the ministry showed that 97 percent of 651,000 high school seniors and teachers were willing to get vaccinated as of last Friday.
From July 13-24, cram school teachers and workers in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, 210,000 people in total, will start getting vaccine shots, the ministry said.
A total of 15.44 million people, or 30.1 percent of the country’s population, have been partially vaccinated, and 5.49 million people have been fully vaccinated.
During the briefing, Vice Education Minister Jeong Jong-cheol said the ministry will keep in place the school reopening plan for the second semester, under which students attend in-person classes full-time unless the daily caseload surpasses 1,000.
His comments came as the country reported 1,275 infection cases earlier in the day, the highest daily caseload since Jan. 20 last year, when the nation confirmed its first infection.
Under the ministry’s plan, which was unveiled last month in line with the government’s new, eased four-tier social distancing scheme, all schoolchildren will be able to get face-to-face instruction up until Level 2, when daily cases are fewer than 1,000.
Schools will switch to all-virtual classes under the most stringent Level 4, when the country reports more than 2,000 daily infection cases nationwide.
“We believe we can step closer to a full reopening of schools in the second semester if everyone complies with health protocols and the vaccination plan goes smoothly,” the vice minister said, adding that he hopes the country “flattens the curve during July and August.”
He also said schools can decide whether to advance the dates of summer holidays at their discretion, as part of efforts to stem the spread of the virus in school buildings. School summer vacation normally starts in mid-July and ends in mid-August.
To protect the health of 5,000 student athletes who are living in school dormitories that are prone to virus infections, surveillance testing for COVID-19 will be conducted on them twice, before and after summer vacation, the ministry said.
Source: Yonhap News Agency