When schools started reopening in Thailand a month ago, strict protocols were implemented to protect students from the risk of COVID-19 infection.

Learning inside the box: Before classes were allowed to reopen in July, Thai authorities recommended preventative measures including frequent sanitation of the classroom, social distancing, smaller class sizes (between 20-25 students) and protective screens to separate the students, DailyMail reports. Now, in August, photos inside the Wat Khlong Toey School in Bangkok, show how the students are fairing.

• Students are required to wear face masks that teachers supply them at the start of each class.
• The school implemented regular temperature checks using a system that sends a message to parents via facial recognition scanners.
• Throughout the day, areas at risk of spreading the disease, such as doorknobs and desks are frequently sanitized.
• Elementary and high school students are seated at desks with plastic screens, or cardboard election partitions turned into makeshift dividers and spaced farther apart from each other.
  

• Kindergarten students attend classes inside plastic see-through cubicles, especially set up so they can individually play and learn.

Additional precautions: To top off the careful social distancing and sanitizing protocols, Wat Khlong Toey School and other schools took it a step farther.

• Some schools, like the Sam Khok school, implemented the extra precaution of making nearly 5,000 students self-quarantine at home for 15 days before they reopened, according to Principal Chuchart Thiengtham.
• Wat Khlong Toey School went the extra mile of installing sinks and soap dispensers outside of each classroom as well as hand sanitizer and temperature scanners at the school’s entrance. The elementary children sing songs about handwashing while remaining in their social distancing squares.

• Kanlaya Srimongkhol, a student, said, “I feel good studying behind the box because it makes me feel safer returning to school.”

Containing the pandemic: Being the first country outside of China to detect a COVID-19 infection in January, Thailand has so far handled the spread of the disease comparatively better than most of its Southeast Asian neighbors. 

• There have been 3,351 COVID-19 infections, 3,163 recoveries, 58 deaths in Thailand.
  
• New cases continue to rise in the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore, prompting the Thai government to delay plans for a “travel bubble” agreement with countries as new in parts of Asia, Reuters reports.
• “We are delaying discussion of travel bubble arrangements for now given the outbreak situation in other countries,” Thailand’s coronavirus task force spokesman, Taweesin Wisanuyothin was quoted as saying.

All Images via Getty