Maintain Twice-Weekly Pre-School Testing Until April 16... Once Weekly Testing from April 18

Rapid Antigen Test Kit Distribution Maintained in April
Twice Weekly Until 16th, Once Weekly from 18th
Flexible Application Based on Regional Infection Status After 18th
Preemptive Test-PCR Linked Analysis Shows 89% Positive Predictive Value

[Asia Economy Reporter Han Jinju] The Ministry of Education will continue to provide rapid antigen test kits to students and staff in April and maintain the pre-attendance screening policy. Based on predictions that the COVID-19 outbreak will decline, from April 18, testing will be recommended once a week.

On the 16th, the Ministry of Education announced that pre-attendance screening will continue in April, maintaining the twice-weekly testing standard for students until the second week of April (16th), and easing to once a week from the 18th. Students will also receive only one test kit per week starting April 18. However, depending on the infectious disease situation by region, metropolitan and provincial superintendents of education will be allowed to apply this flexibly. In April, 42.9 million kits will be distributed, with a total budget of 104 billion KRW allocated.

Currently, twice-weekly pre-attendance testing is recommended, but if there is a confirmed case within the family, testing every other day is required, and if a confirmed case appears in the same class, testing up to three times a week at two-day intervals is necessary, causing inconvenience to parents. Since the start of the semester, student confirmed cases have surged, with 334,979 cases reported from April 8 to 14, averaging 47,854 cases per day. This is a 64.4% increase in daily average cases compared to the first week of the semester. Health authorities predict that the peak of the spread will continue for 1 to 2 more weeks before gradually declining, and considering the workload related to dividing test kits, the Ministry of Education decided to maintain the twice-weekly testing standard only until the second week of April.

Analysis linking the self-diagnosis app responses recording pre-attendance test results with the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test results held by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency showed a positive predictive value of about 89%. The Ministry of Education judged that early detection of 160,000 confirmed cases was effective in preventing the spread of COVID-19 in schools.

A total of 3,946,559 students entered their pre-attendance test results into the self-diagnosis app during the first week of the semester, among whom 169,790 tested positive on the rapid antigen test kits (positivity rate 4.3%). The number of people confirmed positive by PCR tests was 152,316, with a positivity rate of about 89.71%. The overall positivity rate, including staff, was 89.01%.

From this month, primary vaccinations for children aged 5 to 11 and third doses for adolescents aged 12 to 17 will be administered. The Ministry of Education decided to include children aged 5 to 11 in the 'Student Vaccine Adverse Reaction Health Recovery Support' program to provide medical expense support. This refers to medical expense support provided by the Ministry of Education to students who applied for national compensation due to severe adverse reactions after vaccination but were excluded from compensation due to difficulty in establishing causality. The Ministry of Education supports medical expenses after a prescribed review process, especially when other causes are more likely than the vaccine.

To receive medical expense support, the individual or guardian must submit a medical expense support application and supporting documents to the Korea Educational Environment Protection Agency (a delegated institution of the Ministry of Education), and can receive medical expenses up to a total limit of 5 million KRW per person. The Ministry of Education plans to strengthen guidance and publicity to students and parents from the national compensation review stage related to medical expense support.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Yoo Eun-hye stated, "With the Omicron variant reaching its peak, pre-attendance screening, whose effectiveness has been proven, is the most efficient way to protect the health and safety of our students. We ask for active cooperation from metropolitan and provincial offices of education, schools, and parents. We will also do our best to ensure that medical expense support for adverse reactions to vaccination proceeds without any issues."

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