Chinese Schools Bring Back ‘Tradition From COVID Years’ as Students Are Screened for Illnesses

China’s education leaders are telling schools to once again screen students and staff for respiratory illnesses, as a surge of pneumonia cases in the nation continues.

The nation’s education ministry issued a directive Monday, according to a report by the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. It also wants local health departments to work alongside local schools to manage infections.

“We’re carrying out illness reporting and health checks of students every day. It’s a tradition from the COVID years,” Zhang Ligang, a teacher in Wuhan — where the COVID-19 pandemic initially began — told the Hong Kong publication.

She continued that currently, a class will be suspended if at least a third of children report illnesses.

Health officials are also telling schools to promote vaccination among children to prevent and to help guide families in case their child falls ill. Preparations are also being made to move classes online.

“Too many kids are sick. Some parents send their kids to school even when they’re sick, so that the kids won’t miss classes,” one concerned parent told the Post.

It comes weeks after the world was shocked by reports of a mysterious surge in pediatric pneumonia cases in the capital city of Beijing and the northern province of Liaoning. It was later uncovered by The Messenger that the outbreak also appeared in two coastal provinces in late summer.

Chinese officials say that the large uptick in cases was the result of regularly circulating respiratory illnesses and a bacterial infection caused by Mycoplasma pneumoniae. Both the World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have agreed with China’s explanation.

Rates of pneumonia cases have been higher than normal in the United States as well. In both Ohio and Massachusetts, similar increases have occurred. 
Surges in pediatric pneumonia have also been recorded across Europe. In France and Ireland, cases were directly blamed on M. pneumoniae. The Netherlands also reported a significant increase in cases over the past month.