Shanghai has postponed the national college entrance examination to July due to the COVID-19 epidemic, according to a news conference held on Saturday.

The examination, or gaokao, which was scheduled to be held in June, is now deferred to July 7 - 9, the city's vice-mayor Chen Qun said.

Over 50,000 students will sit the college entrance examination. Another 110,000 students will attend the senior high school entrance examination, scheduled on July 11 and 12, while laboratory exams for physics and chemistry and foreign language listening tests will be canceled.

Chen said special rooms will be set up for students under concentrated quarantine or with abnormal COVID-19 test results, ensuring every student will be able to sit the exams.

Since March 12, all primary and secondary schools in Shanghai have switched to online teaching, and kindergartens and nurseries have been closed.

Shanghai is experiencing a severe flare-up of the COVID-19 outbreak, and the city has logged around 600,000 local infections since March 1.

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