After the Third Week of April, School Dormitories Will Maintain 'Twice Weekly' Proactive Testing

Ministry of Education Announces April School Quarantine Support Plan
Emphasizes Quarantine System to Prevent Dormitory Group Infections
Requests Cooperation for Dormitory Residents Without Private Bathrooms to Use Health Centers
948 Cumulative Infections at Korea Maritime University Dormitory from March 2 to 21

On the morning of the 28th, students at Dongseong High School in Jongno-gu, Seoul, underwent rapid self-molecular diagnostic gene amplification (rapid PCR) tests as they arrived at school. The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education expanded the "Mobile Specimen Collection Team for Educational Facilities" from one team to more than four teams and designated the period until the 6th of next month as an "Intensive Multi-layered Quarantine Period," including a pilot operation of rapid PCR tests at five dormitory-operating schools.
/Photo by Joint Press Corps

[Asia Economy Reporter Han Jinju] The Ministry of Education has decided to maintain twice-weekly pre-attendance testing for school dormitories even after the third week of April.

On the 29th, the Ministry of Education announced its school quarantine support plan for April and stated that it will consult with metropolitan and provincial offices of education to conduct twice-weekly preemptive testing using rapid antigen test kits for school dormitories after the third week of April.

From the third week of April, the frequency of pre-attendance testing for elementary, middle, and high school students will be reduced to once a week, but the twice-weekly standard will be maintained for school dormitories due to concerns about group infections.

The Ministry of Education emphasized and will re-announce the quarantine system, including prohibiting movement between floors and rooms within dormitories, refraining from operating shared facilities (such as reading rooms and lounges), and regularly conducting cleaning, disinfection, and ventilation.

After the new semester began, a large-scale group infection occurred at the Korea Maritime and Ocean University’s Maritime College dormitory, the Seungseon Dormitory, leading to a two-week closure of the dormitory. According to the Ministry of Education, a total of 948 confirmed cases were reported at the Maritime University dormitory from March 2 to 21.

An official from the Ministry of Education said, "Currently, the Maritime University has issued BCP Level 1 and switched some classes to online. It is estimated that the number of confirmed cases has significantly decreased compared to March 21. We visited the school site directly to provide guidance on key inspection points and will address any shortcomings as soon as the status survey results are available."

Following the start of the semester, the Ministry of Education conducted its own quarantine inspections of dormitory management and found that out of 235 schools operating dormitories, 228 schools (97.02%) submitted negative test certificates upon admission. It was also reported that 217 schools (92.34%) operated isolation rooms.

The Ministry of Education visited 36 universities to check quarantine inspection items for multi-use facilities such as lecture halls, cafeterias, and dormitories, and requested cooperation from local governments to allow confirmed dormitory students to be admitted to residential treatment centers. Dormitories or goshiwons (small rooms for rent) without individual bathrooms, which are vulnerable to infection due to their living environment, must have residents admitted to residential treatment centers.

The Ministry of Education announced that 490,000 confirmed cases were detected early through pre-attendance testing during the three weeks following the March semester start.

Analysis linking self-diagnosis app responses and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test results from March 2 to 20 showed that the positive predictive value of pre-attendance testing reached 92.9%.

The positive rate for pre-attendance testing was 11.07% for students (489,328 individuals) and 6.92% for staff (36,496 individuals), while the PCR test positive rates were 93.75% for students (458,723 individuals) and 81.57% for staff (29,768 individuals).

By school level, the lower the school level such as kindergarten and elementary school, the higher the positive predictive value. PCR positive rates were 95.66% for elementary students, 94.16% for kindergarteners, 93.4% for middle school students, and 89.31% for high school students.

The Ministry of Education is providing 43.13 million test kits to metropolitan and provincial offices of education for students and staff and plans to additionally supply about 588,000 public test kits from April, considering university testing demand.

Additionally, in collaboration with universities, the Ministry will conduct a program matching 259 university students who wish to support school quarantine with metropolitan and provincial offices of education and schools. Among them, 64 are nursing and health-related university students.

The Ministry of Education has conducted online pre-training for university students to support quarantine personnel and plans to operate them in the same manner as existing school quarantine personnel after verifying any disqualifications.

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