Virus vaccines Three COVID-19 vaccines have entered phase II clinical trials in Beijing, said a municipal health official on Sunday. Xu Qiang, head of the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, said that Beijing has arranged 21 science and technology projects in response to the novel coronavirus epidemic. Five innovative drugs have been approved for clinical trials, and all of them have entered phase II clinical studies, he said at a routine press conference on COVID-19 prevention and control. Shanghai preschools Shanghai’s public kindergartens will reopen on June 2, also first, second and third-graders of elementary schools in the city will return to school on the same day as the epidemic wanes, local authorities said on Saturday. The junior students can choose to continue their online education at home if necessary, said the municipal education commission. The online courses will last till the end of this semester. From June 2, private kindergartens in Shanghai can decide their own time to resume classes after getting approval from the district education administrations. Online learning Chinese high school students have the most positive attitude toward online learning compared with those in the United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea, a report released by China Youth Daily has found. The report showed that most of the surveyed students in the four countries embrace online learning. A total of 87.1 percent of Chinese students said “online learning is important,” while 91.2 percent found “online learning is interesting,” higher than that of any of the other three countries. More than 94 percent of Chinese high school students believe online learning can expand their scope of knowledge, while 86.8 percent believe they can learn from first-class teachers via the Internet, according to the report. Underage Internet users A total of 175 million Chinese minors, or 93.1 percent of them, are Internet users, according to the latest report on Internet use among minors. The report last week pointed out that the gap in Internet use between urban and rural minors have been further bridged. The report is based on a survey of 34,661 students in primary, middle, high school and secondary vocational schools in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. (SD-Agencies) | 