Beijing holds college entrance exam amid epidemic controls

China's annual college entrance exam, better known as the gaokao, kicked off Tuesday morning with more than 50,000 candidates signed up for the test in Beijing, which is now in the final stage of a COVID-19 outbreak.

Beijing set up 99 regular test centers and 55 back-up centers in case epidemic clusters rise near the regular ones, according to Guangming Daily.

Among the 54,728 candidates who have signed up for the test, 48,693 of them would attend the test starting on Tuesday.

All candidates and staff have negative results from nucleic acid tests taken within 48 hours.

According to the city's education commission, each candidate in locked-down areas should have a separate examination room. For candidates in controlled areas, several students can share an examination room but the distance between seats should not be less than two meters.

Xu Hejian, spokesman for the city government, said at a news conference on Tuesday the authority will employ strict epidemic control and prevention measures to ensure the smooth process of the test.

Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control, said candidates should bring enough masks and avoid having too much cold food during the test.

"Parents of candidates should not gather in crowds outside test centers to minimize the risk of infection," she said.

Beijing reported five new locally transmitted cases as of 3 pm on Tuesday, bringing the total number of infections to 1,829 since April 22, according to Pang.

All new infections were reported in quarantine locations, she said. Beijing has not reported any new cases at the community level for four days in a row.

As of Tuesday, Beijing had one high-risk area for COVID-19 and four medium-risk areas.