Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman issued directives to King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSRelief) to provide urgent assistance to China in order to contain the impacts of the new coronavirus.

Also on Thursday, the King made a telephone call to Chinese President Xi Jinping. During the phone conversation, the Monarch shared with Jinping and friendly people of China his heartfealt feelings due to the outbreak of the epidemic, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

King Salman offered condolences to the families of those died and wished the ailing speedy recovery. “The Kingdom is confident of the Chinese government’s capability to deal with the impacts of this virus,” the King said.

For his part, the president of China affirmed his country’s sufficient experience to deal with this epidemic and address its impacts. He thanked the King for his keenness and strong support for combating coronavirus. He added that this reflects the depth of relations between the two countries.

New rules for admission for returnee students

In a related development, Ministry of Education issued instructions to take a number of urgent precautionary measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus with regard to admission of children returning from China in schools. These rules are to be implemented in coordination with the Ministry of Health (MoH).

According to the measures, the school head is instructed not to accept any returnee student from China or any other corona-hit countries except after a written consent from the Education Department.

The consent shall be attached with a form regarding the student’s health status from the Public Health Department under MoH in their respective region.

The Education Department has to refer students, who are coming from the aforementioned countries and who wish to enroll in one of the government, private or foreign education schools, to the Public Health Department and follow up with the medical measures taken.

The Public Health Department should follow up to verify the medical test procedures and then communicate with the parents of students to conduct the necessary examination and fill in the relevant form related to the acceptance of students’ admission in schools and send it to the Education Department.

The Ministry of Education instructed public and private universities to work within the guidelines for infection prevention in the university environment, and that no returning student from China and the virus-hit countries would be accepted without the written consent from the Public Health Department.

Meanwhile, Saudi students and teachers at the Saudi schools in Beijing and members of the educational mission in Hong Kong as well as their families were evacuated due to the outbreak of coronavirus.

The evacuation operation was carried out in line with the keenness of the Saudi government on the safety of the citizens in China and ensuring their safe return to the Kingdom at the expense of the state.

A working team, formed by the Ministry of Education, followed the arrival of the teachers and students to the homeland with providing all necessary needs for them and their families.