WHO: School Closures Due to Coronavirus Pandemic Should Be 'Last Resort'

The head of the World Health Organization on Tuesday said school closures due to the coronavirus pandemic should be a "last resort", temporary, and only applied in places with high levels of transmission.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was speaking in Geneva, where he was joined by the heads of UNICEF and UNESCO to tout the importance of keeping schools open, when possible.

The WHO chief warned that the more kids were out of school, the less likely they were to return in many places, and said "distance learning" should be made available where possible to provide children with a continuity of education.

Tedros acknowledged that many questions remained about how the virus affected children and adolescents, but said that the picture was getting clearer.

He said that although WHO data showed less than 10% of confirmed COVID cases and under 0.2% of COVID-19 deaths were recorded in people under age 20, more research was needed on factors that increase the risk of severe cases and death among children, and the virus' long-term effects on them.

Mike Ryan, who heads the WHO's health emergencies programme, said making sure that children could attend school and the vulnerable were protected meant that adults would likely to have to make sensible "trade offs' in the coming winter months.

"Something in some sense has to give because we have to sustain pressure on this virus," he said.

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