Several private and international schools have shortened the duration of school days thanks to rampant fear of the MERS coronavirus among students, parents and school administrators.
The school day for primary students has been ending at 12 p.m. rather than 2 p.m.
A supervisor of one of the international schools in the Rawdah district in Jeddah, who requested anonymity, said that reducing the number of school hours for some classes, particularly grades one to three, was usually done for a week before the end of the school year, but that school days will now be cut short for up to four weeks thanks to fears of the coronavirus, which infected another seven people on Tuesday, bringing the total number of cases to 421 since September 2012.
Khaled Al-Maliki, a father, said he would like to see the school year end as soon as possible due to concern for his son’s health. Al-Maliki has often kept his children home when other children have fallen ill with flu-like symptoms such as fever.
The seven new MERS cases reported Tuesday, meanwhile, included five women. A 68-year-old man who was being treated at a government hospital in Riyadh has been discharged. Tuesday’s victims are four patients in Riyadh, two in Jeddah and one in Madinah, according to a ministry statement.
Meanwhile, a man has died in Jordan after being infected with the MERS virus, a media report said Tuesday, in Jordan’s second fatality from the disease this year and fourth since 2012.
“The new death from the coronavirus was one of those infected with the virus who was 56 years old who was suffering from anemia and pneumonia, and who had been hospitalized,” Health Ministry official Mohammad Abdallat was quoted as saying by state news agency Petra.
— With input from agencies
