Letters | Coronavirus in Hong Kong: half-day classes at school hardly help protect students

Readers discuss Hong Kong’s school reopening policy, the need for educators to focus on social skills this year, why democracy is unlikely to suit Afghanistan and the media focus on the Kabul airport blasts

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Students enjoy their lunch at a school in in Tsing Yi in May 2016. The current half-day arrangement at most schools in Hong Kong is meant to reduce the chances of Covid-19 spreading. Photo: David Wong

Published: 7:00am, 2 Sep 2021

The Education Bureau’s rationale for allowing only half-day school is to avoid students having lunch together in the school canteen, which could increase the risk of Covid-19 spreading (“Hong Kong schools unlikely to resume full-day classes when new term starts, as many students not yet vaccinated”, August 28).

I wonder if Education Secretary Kevin Yeung Yun-hung or his assistants have ever had lunch in fast-food shops near schools, especially secondary schools. He would notice that on school days these packed restaurants have several students sitting at tables in groups of three and four.

Surely that is much worse than if they have lunch at school. It would be easier to do contact tracing in case of an infection if students had lunch at their desks in their classrooms.

Also, why is the government only offering children aged 12 and above the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and not a vaccine from mainland China? We do not trust Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson. There are many parents who will only trust vaccines from the mainland.

Edwin Pun, Tung Chung

As schools reopen, focus on social skills

As the new school year begins, one might reflect on how the educational landscape has changed with the Covid-19 pandemic causing more than a year of on-and-off class suspensions and online learning.