SEOUL, South Korea — Nearly a half-million South Korean secondary school seniors dug in on Thursday to take a yearly college selection test they had been planning for since kindergarten — a nine-hour long distance race of tests that could choose their prospects.

Be that as it may, this year, the public authority needed to guarantee the test didn’t turn into a super-spreader occasion for the Covid.

For quite a long time, wellbeing authorities in full defensive stuff had over and again sanitized 31,000 homerooms where the test was to occur.

All understudies needed to get their temperature taken prior to entering the study halls. They sat at work areas isolated by plastic dividers and wore veils all through the test.

Government-run wellbeing centers remained for the time being to test understudies and screen anybody contaminated with the infection finally. Those with a fever or sore throat were accompanied to isolate rooms to take their tests. At any rate one understudy appeared in full defensive stuff inspired by a paranoid fear of getting the Covid.

“I came early on the grounds that I expected that I may be trapped in a gridlock,” another understudy, Kim Mun-jeong, told the news organization. “I additionally needed to look into the test-taking room sooner than different understudies to get myself acclimated with it and increase poise.”

In this schooling fixated nation, it’s difficult to overestimate the significance of the College Scholastic Ability Tests, or suneung, in the life of a South Korean understudy.

Most colleges select their understudies dependent on the grades of the single normalized year-end test. Confirmations from a couple of top colleges like Seoul National can have a gigantic effect while going after positions and advancements. Numerous understudies who neglect to enter the colleges they pine for step through the exams over and over in the next years, regularly living and concentrating in foundations with militarylike discipline.

Test day is likewise a day when the nation all in all wrings its hands and a lot of life is placed on hold.

All banks, organizations and government workplaces deferred opening their entryways by an hour to reduce street traffic. All planes were grounded and all military firearms hushed for thirty minutes for dread they may interfere with understudies zeroed in on an English listening-cognizance test. In the Jogyesa Buddhist sanctuary in Central Seoul, guardians lit candles and copied incense as they appealed to God for the accomplishment of their kids taking the test.

The pandemic has added new curves and an additional layer of tension and anticipation to the tiring test. South Korea is wrestling with a third flood of Covid diseases, with wellbeing authorities detailing the absolute most noteworthy day by day caseloads the nation has seen. In the previous week, the nation has announced 438 to 581 new cases for each day, including 540 on Thursday.

“Test takers and their folks, who have been supporting them, have made some harder memories this year than any time in recent memory due to Covid-19,” said Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun, alluding to how the pandemic has overturned school life. “We should do all that we can to ensure that the understudies take their test securely, and plan for any crises that can occur during the test day.”

Suneung for the most part happens in mid-November, however the test was pushed back by about fourteen days in light of the fact that the pandemic postponed school openings by a month in spring. Authorities avoided potential risk to ensure understudies arrived at the test locales securely and on schedule.

On Thursday, cops with bikes were dispatched to get those running late for the test.

Indeed, even the individuals who tried positive for the infection found the opportunity to take the school placement test. The Education Ministry and wellbeing authorities arranged negative-pressure clinic chambers at the Seoul Medical Center and 24 different emergency clinics so 35 understudy with Covid-19 could take their tests while test overseers wearing Level-D defensive suits kept watch. Attendants likewise watched out for the understudies through shut circuit TV screens for difficult situations.

In excess of 400 understudies under a fourteen day isolate were additionally permitted to sit for the test in the uncommonly arranged offices.