58,000 Wuhan students return to school as normalcy returns
Firefighters carry out disinfection to the lecture hall at the No. 23
Senior High School in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, April 22,
2020.Photo:Xinhua
Some 57,800 graduating class students in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei
Province, returned to school on Wednesday, the first workday after the
May Day holidays, as the city emerges from the COVID-19 outbreak and
continues to resume work and production.
After more than 100 days
of suspension, a batch of 121 high schools and technical schools in
Wuhan resumed classes. Middle school graduating class students will
follow soon.
Schools rolled out stringent precautions, including
health code scanning, the use of facial recognition, footprint signs to
mark queuing distances and multiple temperature checks.
Students
will receive temperature checks three times a day. Once any suspected
or confirmed COVID-19 case occurs, an emergency plan will be immediately
launched.
The departments of education, public security and
public health in Wuhan have all prepared for the safety of school
students in learning, transportation, housing, food and medicine.
Schools
will also divide classes into smaller sizes, stagger the times that
students leave schools, and keep oral communication to a minimum to
ensure the safety of the students in class.
"The pandemic has
left a great impact on many Wuhan people, particularly us students,"
Chen Jiujiu (pseudonym), a senior student from Wuhan No. 14 high school,
told the Global Times on Wednesday.
Many of Chen's classmates
decided to choose medical or scientific technology-related majors for
their future college study after being inspired by the sacrifice of the
medical workers and the contribution of scientists in the battle against
the pandemic in the past months, according to Chen.
Chen said
that she had decided to study medicine in college. "Wuhan people will
not forget how much medical workers have done for the city. I will be
very proud if I can join the medical team someday in the future," she
said.
Life is gradually returning to normalcy in Wuhan after the
city lifted its 76-day lockdown and few cases of infection have been
reported.
Work and production in all industries has resumed at
an increasing pace. The traffic flow in Wuhan's most popular business
districts continues to go up. Wuhan Square business district saw 188,000
people on Tuesday, according to data that the Wuhan epidemic prevention
and control group published.
Some 1,326 major projects with an
investment of more than 100 million yuan ($14 million) have restarted,
People's Daily reported on Sunday. Among the projects under construction
in Wuhan, the rate of resumption of municipal key transportation
projects has reached 100 percent, according to Changjiang Daily.
On
Friday, 136 Korean technicians and suppliers reached Wuhan in chartered
planes, which marked the first batch of foreigners to return to the
city since the ban on entry of foreigners to prevent imported
infections, Jiankang Shibao reported on Sunday.
Shanghai 5-star hotel under legal scanner for damaging Chinese student's personal belongings
In
a centralized quarantine site near Shanghai Hongqiao International
Airport, medical personnel deployed by Shanghai Changning District
Health Commission, have been working round the clock, despite risks of
infection, for half a month, assisting quarantined inbound travelers and
helping to identify possible COVID-19 carriers. Photo: Yang Hui/GT
A
Chinese student, who was studying abroad, has initiated legal action
against a five-star Shanghai hotel after hotel staff allegedly damaged
his personal belongings while he was under treatment for COVID-19.
Lin
Sheng arrived in Shanghai in March and tested positive for COVID-19
during his centralized quarantine. On April 30, the student, who was
pursuing his studies in Italy, claimed on Sina Weibo that all his
belongings left at the Shanghai Keya International Hotel had been
damaged while he was admitted at the designated local COVID-19
hospital.
Apart from cash, the damaged items include his
academic credentials and identification documents like passport, Italian
residence permit, postgraduate admission certificate, and his iPad that
had 140 of his illustrations created over the past year.
Speaking
to the Global Times on Sunday, Lin said what concerns him the most is
he may not be able to continue his study in Italy due to the loss of the
necessary certificates, which he obtained in a foreign country.
After
he arrived in Shanghai on March 17, Lin, a Wuhan native, left his
check-in luggage at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport and
brought his carry-on luggage to the hotel where he was put under
centralized quarantine, per the local epidemic prevention policy.
During
the quarantine, Lin developed a fever and was later confirmed with the
infection. Before he was shifted to the designated hospital for
treatment, he was told by the medical staff that his belongings would be
at the possession of the hotel.
After he slightly recovered in
early April, Lin fetched his check-in luggage back from the airport;
however, he was informed by the hospital that his belongings left at the
hotel were missing.
After scrutinizing the surveillance camera
footage,the local police found that the hotel room where he stayed was
thoroughly disinfected as soon as he tested positive for COVID-19 on
March 24. During the sanitization, a cleaner took out all his personal
items from the room on March 26. However, there was no further
surveillance camera footage available to ascertain the condition of his
belongings thereafter. Upon further questioning, the hotel staff
revealed that his belongings were dealt with as clinical waste.
Lin
told the Global Times the local police suggested him to resolve the
issue privately by settling the disputes with the hotel through
negotiation.
A contact named Shen Yinghua who is negotiating the
matter with Lin on behalf of the hotel told the Global Times on Sunday
the hotel has been proactively communicating with Lin, but they are yet
to reach any final agreement as of press time. "The hotel will issue an
official announcement when the dispute is settled," Shen said.
Lin
told the Global Times since all his academic certificates are lost, he
may not be able to further his study in Italy when the epidemic ends,
and thus he sought compensation for the study abroad application
expenditure, which continues to be a matter of dispute between the hotel
and Lin.
"During the negotiation, the hotel has agreed to an
amount of over 80,000 yuan ($11,331.12), including the cost of my iPad
and the compensation for 60 out of my 140 illustrations at the price of
500 yuan each, which is the lowest limit of what I can bear," Lin said.
"I
also wanted to pencil the term of a 140,000-yuan compensation for the
overseas study application fees and the tuitions in Italy in the
agreement, in case I could not return to Italy, which they disagreed,"
said Lin who has been learning painting since he was 4 years old, and
had been preparing for overseas study since he was a junior at
university.
Lin told the Global Times his experience of missing
belongings is an isolated incident as no other patient lost their
luggage. An official from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention
of Pudong New Area told the Global Times on Wednesday under the
condition of anonymity that confirmed patients of COVID-19 would, in
theory, take their luggage with them if they are shifted from the
centralized quarantine site to the designated COVID-19 hospital in
Shanghai. "But the situations may also differ depending on different
people," the official added.
After his recovery and discharge
from the hospital on April 30, Lin assigned a third-party to settle his
dispute with the hotel.
As of press time, Lin's post on Sina Weibo has garnered over 204,800 reposts with nearly 50,700 comments and 738,500 likes.
Many
IT professionals and warm-hearted netizens left their comments,
instructing him how to recover his illustrations through iCloud or other
cloud storage functions.
Other netizens extended their sympathy
with Lin's loss of his Italian residence permit by highlighting the
hardships of obtaining a residency in Italy.
Since the outbreak
of the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe, overseas Chinese students
returning to China have stirred some heated debates. While most netizens
have extended their support to Lin, a Weibo user with the handle
@wszdanzdm lashed out at Lin for returning to China with the virus.
However, such a comment was severely refuted by other users who believe
as a Chinese national, Lin's rights should be protected.
Source: GLOBAL TIMES, by Wan Lin&Du Qiongfang
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