Schools Asked To Suspend All Campus Activities

The Education Bureau (EDB) has asked schools to stop all campus activities for two weeks from Wednesday in light of the growing Covid-19 outbreak.

In a letter, the bureau said classes and extra-curricular activities should be suspended until July 28, and schools need to finish all exams in the coming two to three days, or postpone or cancel them.

The same arrangements apply to private institutions like tutorial schools.

The EDB also said it will keep close contact with experts and the sector, and announce arrangements for the new school year as soon as possible

Some schools and kindergartens are scheduled to start their new year next month.

Chairman of the Hong Kong Association of the Heads of Secondary Schools, Teddy Tang, said students are unlikely to be affected if some exams get postponed.

“I think most schools have already deal with their examinations ok, but for some schools they may need to cancel one or two subjects," he told RTHK's Frances Sit.

"But it won’t affect the overall performance of the students, and I think most schools will adopt a rather flexible approach in handling students' promotion.”

Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts said it will be closing its campus until at least July 20.

The school also responded to reports from last week that one of its students had been confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus. It said the student in question had not been on campus since June, and that when the reports first emerged they immediately closed the campus and arranged for it to be disinfected.

The academy said they have been in contact with the Centre for Health Protection, which confirmed that the school is not the source of infection for any recently-confirmed cases.

The government has reintroduced tighter social distancing measures as health officials warned that that the current outbreak is more widespread than a previous spike in March — which consisted of mostly imported cases.

On Monday night, Ocean Park and Hong Kong Disneyland announced that they would close their doors from July 15 until July 21 due to the Covid-19 situation.

Both the theme parks re-opened in June following months of closure after the outbreak in March.