SED speaks on first school day
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Reporter: How many schools and when the schools are expected to resume full-day classes? Is it possible to reach a 70 per cent vaccination rate (for students) because some primary school students are not able to be vaccinated because they are younger than 12?
Secretary for Education: At this stage, since only children aged over 12 could take the vaccination, when we say that if over 70 per cent of teachers and students have taken the vaccination, they are allowed to have full-day face-to-face lectures or lessons. Obviously, it will not include kindergartens as well as primary schools. However, we will consider the overall pandemic situation and overall situation in Hong Kong. Because when we achieve a higher percentage rate of vaccination, the overall risk will be lower. Then, we could afford to have some relief in the social distancing measures. At the same time, we would consider whether we could have further relaxation in terms of face-to-face lessons in primary schools and kindergartens. We have to see the overall situation before we can take further steps on that. For secondary schools, as most of the students are eligible for taking the vaccine, if secondary schools achieved over 70 per cent of teachers and students having taken the vaccination, then they are allowed to resume full-day face-to-face lessons. They meet the condition to do that.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, September 1, 2021
Issued at HKT 13:00
Issued at HKT 13:00
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