Photo/Illutration Camp Hansen, a U.S. Marine Corps facility in Okinawa Prefecture (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Dozens of children of U.S. military personnel, as well as civilian and Japanese workers, at U.S. bases in Okinawa Prefecture are having to skip school due to on-site outbreaks of the novel coronavirus, according to local education boards.

They said that 110 or so children who attend elementary and junior high schools in the southernmost prefecture are affected.

The figure includes those whose parents are not affiliated with the bases but decided to keep their children out of school as a precaution against them becoming infected.

Data compiled by municipal boards of education between July 13 and 16 found that 109 children of U.S. military personnel, civilian employees and Japanese workers at the bases stayed home in nine municipalities.

On July 11, the U.S. Marine Corps authorities in the prefecture instructed its military personnel and civilian employees not to allow their children to attend schools located outside the bases.

The parents informed the schools that they were ordered to keep their kids at home.

With regard to Japanese civilian employees working at the bases, one parent told a school in Naha that the military had ordered staff to keep their children at home.

Another parent informed a school in Yomitan that children were being kept away as a precaution against infecting others in case they had already contracted the virus through the parent.

Since July 7, infections have surged at two U.S. Marine Corps bases in Okinawa: Camp Hansen, located in the northern part of Okinawa’s main island, and the Futenma air station in Ginowan.

As of July 16, a total of 134 cases were confirmed at U.S. bases in the prefecture.

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