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About 57,000 Chinese students wore masks and underwent thermal scans Wednesday as they filed back to class in the coronavirus epicenter city of Wuhan.
“School is finally reopening!” one student posted on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like messaging platform, according to Agence France-Presse.
“This is the first time that I’m so happy to go back to school, although I have to sit a monthly examination on the 8th,” the user added.
Students in 121 institutions in Hubei Province were finally back for the first time since their city, ground zero of the global pandemic, shut down in January and remained locked down for 76 days.
After months of distance learning, the teens sat at desks spaced about 3 feet apart.
But only the province’s oldest students were present — vocational students and seniors who are due to take the all-important university entrance exams.
Return dates have generally not been confirmed for juniors and middle schoolers, though some localities have allowed them to return as well.
Officials in Wuhan said students and staff must all have undergone virus tests before heading back to their schools, all of which have been disinfected.
