Extended break ends for more students

A video clip of several grade 1 students struggling to remember where they sat in the classroom on the first day of returning to school has brought smiles to many people after attracting millions of views online.

In the video, the children from the No 42 Elementary School of Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, scratched their heads when they tried to find their desks or hesitated to sit down, worried they might be occupying others' seats.

After perhaps the longest winter break in history－about 10 weeks－elementary, high and vocational schools in Xinjiang resumed classes on March 23, with more than 4 million students returning. Students in grade 9 and grade 12 resumed classes a week earlier.

Half the country's provinces and autonomous regions have made plans to gradually reopen classes according to grade this month and next.

The Chinese mainland reported 45 new novel coronavirus pneumonia cases on Saturday, with all but one imported, the National Health Commission said.

Students in grade 9 and grade 12 in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, return to school Monday to prepare for the university and senior high school entrance exams.

Students in other grades will return to school after April 7, while college students will return after April 13. Institutions offering after-school training and child care services will be allowed to resume offline operations after the reopening of local primary and middle schools.

To ensure safety, all the schools have installed infrared temperature scanners near school gates to take body temperatures. Any students found with fever will be brought to quarantine areas and sent to hospitals by their parents and their classrooms will be thoroughly disinfected.

Local epidemic control departments have ordered that all schools must have disinfectants, liquid soaps and necessary equipment to guarantee social distancing. The schools cannot resume classes until they pass inspections by epidemic prevention and control departments.

Li Longbin, a director of Tongren No 1 Middle School in Guizhou province, said that all staff members must undergo a 14-day quarantine before they resume work.

"The whole school was disinfected four days before it resumed classes on March 16," Li said. "The students wear face masks and have their body temperatures measured three times a day at school.

"The teachers are also required to wear masks during class. We have also made specific plans to guarantee safety in the cafeteria, classrooms and dorms."

A 1,000-member inspection team has checked more than 2,400 high schools in 88 counties in Guizhou and has allowed them to resume classes.

Some schools in Fujian province have adopted automatic sweeping robots to disinfect campuses. The robots can spray water, collect garbage and avoid obstacles.

"One robot can replace three or four cleaners," said Lin Changqing, president of Fujian Yong'an Property Company. "It avoids people's contacting each other while cleaning the campus."

Zou Huiyun, a co-founder of the company that invented the robot, said: "A robot can work for up to eight hours when it's fully charged. It can sweep 3,000 square meters an hour and clean about 20,000 square meters a day. Now the robots are provided to several universities, high schools and cleaning companies for free."

Hu Meidong in Fuzhou and Che Weiwei in Guiyang contributed to this story.