Senior students maintain a social distance as they arrival at Hamwol High School in Ulsan, South Korea, Wednesday, May 20, 2020. South Korean students began returning to schools Wednesday as their country prepares for a new normal amid the coronavirus pandemic. (Kim Yong-tae/Yonhap via AP)
A high school in Daegu, a southeastern city at the center of South Korea's first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, shut down on Thursday after a student tested positive for the virus, officials said.
According to the city's Metropolitan Office of Education, a Daegu Agricultural Meister High School senior residing in its dormitory has been confirmed to be infected with COVID-19, prompting authorities to close the school and force all other students to return home or be quarantined, reports Yonhap News Agency.
Schools reopened nationwide on Wednesday after five coronavirus-related postponements, and high school seniors were the first group to attend offline classes.
The other primary and secondary students will return in stages to school by June 8.
At the Daegu school, the infected student entered the dorm on Tuesday afternoon before taking a coronavirus test the following day. The school was notified of the student's positive result prior to the beginning of Wednesday's first class.
In accordance with its quarantine manual, the school isolated 17 students residing in the dorm and the remaining 94 seniors were sent home. A total of 18 students who had direct contact with the infected student will take the coronavirus test, said the Yonhap News Agency report.
School facilities will be closed for two days for disinfection, while classes will be shifted back online.
