<Anchor> The number of



new COVID-19 cases remained at 400 for the second day. The first dose of the vaccine has exceeded 15 million people, up close to 30% of the total population. The target of the first vaccination in the first half of the year of 13 million has already exceeded the target, and the full school attendance in the second semester is expected to proceed as scheduled. If there are less than 1,000 confirmed cases per day, it means that students go to school every day.



Reporter Hoon-Kyung Jang will explain.



<Reporter> From the



second semester, the principle of full school attendance is the first and second of the four new social distancing steps.



It means that students can go to school every day as long as the average daily number of confirmed cases in the country does not exceed 1,000.



Considering that the number of confirmed cases per day has never exceeded 1,000 except in early January of this year, except for special circumstances, it is likely that the second semester will be able to return to normal school.



[Yoo Eun-hye / Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education: We will implement full school attendance from the academic calendar for the second semester. We will open the school gates in 17 months.] We



plan to vaccinate as many school members as possible during the vacation period for normal school attendance in the second semester.



By August, we will vaccinate approximately 1.1 million staff at daycare centers, kindergartens, elementary, middle and high schools, and 800,000 college students such as high school seniors.



In addition, schools and private institutes run an intensive quarantine period for three weeks before and after school starts, and up to 60,000 quarantine personnel are deployed.



However, no specific measures have been taken to resolve overcrowded classes with more than 1,000 students and over 30 students in all colleges and universities, which are highly likely to be infected.



[Oh Seok-hwan/Director of Education Policy and Welfare Bureau, Ministry of Education: We plan to make a comprehensive announcement in July. Conversion of special classrooms to regular classrooms and placement of modular teachers (mobile school buildings) are planned to be implemented first.]



Another limitation is that there is no plan to vaccinate students other than high school seniors.



Regarding the risk of spreading during mealtimes, which has no choice but to take off the mask, the government announced that it plans to install partitions and expand staggered distribution, and increase the number of meal helpers.



(Video coverage: Jeong Sang-hwa, video editing: Won-hee Won, VJ: Se-gwan Oh)