Schools in Beijing Suspend Classes, But Don't Panic

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Two primary schools in Xicheng and Fengtai District have suspended in-person classes due to fever outbreaks – but it seems norovirus and H1N1 are to blame, not a new Covid-19 outbreak.

According to several education-related WeChat accounts, at least two schools in Beijing have sent notices to parents that fever outbreaks have occurred, but instead of closing down schools and moving online (as had happened at multiple points during the Covid-19 outbreak), only those classes with multiple ill students have been temporarily shut.

Concurrently, other schools have been warning of outbreaks of norovirus and H1N1, and according to The Global Times, a similar fever outbreak in a Shanghai school has been definitively traced to H1N1.

Norovirus causes vomiting and diarrhea that often spreads easily in schools. H1N1 is a type of influenza virus that can cause respiratory illness, and also transmits easily in schools.

What’s interesting is that Covid-19 has not been mentioned as a factor in any of the outbreaks, and neither has it been ruled out – as one might have expected there to be during Covid-Zero. This by and large is a sign that Beijing has stepped out of the shadows of the Covid days when entire schools would go online at a moment's notice when one student tested positive.

It was reported that one Fengtai public primary school had five students from one class that contracted a fever. In addition, three students from a neighboring classroom that shared a bathroom also fell ill. According to the provisions of infectious disease prevention and control, this warranted the temporary suspension of these two classes. The students were asked to self-monitor at home for four days.

With masks now optional at many schools, the one thing parents are likely to need to adjust to is more frequent transmission of viruses that have, for the past three years, been slowed down by nearly-universal mask-wearing in Beijing's classrooms.

Images: Pexels

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