"Student and Staff Safety First" ... Busan Office of Education Launches 'Omicron Emergency Response Team' for New Semester School Support

The 'Omicron Emergency Response Team' is providing comprehensive support to schools for the new semester.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Hwang Du-yeol] The Busan Metropolitan Office of Education has formed a dedicated organization called the ‘Omicron Emergency Response Team’ to support the operations of schools at all levels in response to the COVID-19 Omicron variant, and will operate it starting from the 24th.

The emergency response team consists of 8 dedicated personnel who oversee school support tasks such as managing the supply of self-diagnostic kits, operating mobile PCR testing teams, and supporting school-led investigations.

The situation monitor within the emergency response team, installed in the annex of the education office, provides a real-time overview of COVID-19 related situations, including daily trends of confirmed student cases and the distribution status of self-test kits.

In addition, ‘Kit Support Teams’ and ‘School Self-Investigation Support Teams’ have been formed and are operating in the five educational support offices in the Busan area.

The ‘Kit Support Team’ is responsible for alleviating school tasks related to kits by deploying 2 kit-dedicated personnel and 2 distribution personnel per support office, along with 220 Red Cross volunteers, to handle kit sorting, distribution, stockpiling, and emergency support tasks.

Each educational support office’s ‘Kit Support Team’ sorted 159,000 self-test kits for February that arrived in Busan.

The support teams plan to distribute these kits to kindergartens and elementary schools in their districts on the 25th, and will also subdivide and distribute the March kits weekly to all kindergartens, elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as special and other schools.

The ‘School Self-Investigation Support Team’ is composed of 3 existing health team personnel and 2 additional personnel per support office, providing wired and wireless support activities and dispatching to sites to assist with testing and self-investigations in emergency situations.

Health teachers, who were scheduled to be additionally assigned from next year for schools with 36 or more classes, have been assigned one year earlier this year.

Dedicated personnel for quarantine tasks necessary for health rooms, cafeterias, and disinfection of spaces within schools will be mandatorily assigned to schools at all levels, and additional support will be provided upon school requests.

Superintendent Kim Seok-jun stated, “We will do our utmost to protect the safety of students and staff and to alleviate the worries and anxieties of parents.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.