China: On 7th May 2022, the Shanghai Municipal government postponed all the entrance examinations for colleges and senior high schools in the city by a month due to the increasing number of COVID-19 Cases.
More than 50,000 students will appear for the college entrance examinations, which are to be conducted from July 7 to 9. 110,000 more students will attend the senior high school entrance examination, scheduled on July 11 and 12. The laboratory exams for physics and chemistry and foreign language listening tests will be canceled, reported Xinhua.
Special rooms will be set up for those students who are under quarantine or show abnormal COVID-19 results, reported Chen Qun, vice mayor of Shanghai. This will ensure that every student will be able to appear for the entrance examinations.
Meanwhile, the primary and secondary schools in Shanghai have switched to online teaching. The kindergartens and nurseries have been closed too.
This update comes as China on Friday reported 345 local confirmed COVID-19 cases, said the National Health Commission in its report. Out of 345, 253 were confirmed in Shanghai.
Despite the severe risk to the country's economy, China's controversial Zero-Covid Policy continues to remain in place to contain the surge of COVID-19 infections as Xi Jinping refuses to change course.
With a tremendous rise in COVID cases caused by the Omicron variant, China is going through its worst outbreak which will impact freight costs and global inflation, said a local media report.
Moreover, China's much-publicized "Zero-Covid" strategy that the government credited for bringing the country out of the pandemic is also falling apart as the rapidly mounting cases are again forcing mass lockdowns like those seen in 2020 as well as adding to the country's economic woes.
