BEIJING — China has put in place the most rigorous COVID-19 prevention and control measures for next week's national college entrance exam, a key event for which more than 10 million candidates have registered, the Ministry of Education said on July 2.

Candidates and the test site staff will have their body temperatures and health conditions monitored regularly starting from 14 days ahead of the exam, the ministry said in a statement.

Exam-sitters will have their body temperatures measured and are allowed into test sites only when their body temperatures are below 37.3 degrees Celsius.

There will be at least three isolated test rooms at each test site, available for candidates who exhibit symptoms of fever and cough during the exam, according to the statement.

Around 10.71 million candidates registered for this year's exam, up by 400,000 from a year earlier, it said.

This year's national unified college entrance exam is scheduled from July 7 to 8, one month later than usual because of the COVID-19 epidemic.