Children and COVID-19 Research Library

Declared a global pandemic on 11 March 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO), COVID-19 has had far-reaching impacts on every facet of life around the world, exacerbating pre-existing  inequalities  and  negatively  impacting  on  vulnerable  and  disadvantaged  populations  the  most.  Learning  continuity  has  been  disrupted  by  school  closures,  generating an unprecedented situation worldwide. According to UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) data collated in July 2020, over 18.6 million children in pre-primary education in forty-eight Sub-Saharan African countries and 4.4 million pre-primary teachers – eighty-five per cent of whom were women – in twenty-four countries in the Asia-Pacific region were affected by school or centre closures. Recognizing the possible severe and detrimental impact that COVID-19 might have on ECE personnel and their practices, UNESCO Bangkok and Dakar teamed up with several partners to undertake regional surveys in the Asia-Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa from April to July 2020. Based on the regional surveys, this report features eight key findings and three key messages to better understand ECE personnel’s needs and to identify possible responses to support them.

When discussing possible consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems certain that the effects of the pandemic will most likely magnify existing educational disparities in Europe and around the world. However, so far, little is known about how the conditions and consequences of distance learning intensify existing dynamics of educational inequalities. This paper aims at answering the question of how educational disadvantages in socially deprived settings are exacerbated through the pandemic. On this basis, it reflects on potential educational practices that can help countering these dynamics. For this study, interviews with teachers in socio-economically disadvantaged (n = 12) and in privileged settings (n = 4) were conducted, transcribed and investigated through qualitative data analysis. The data were categorized with reference to Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of capital to analyze and systematize the empirical results. Finally, a case study from the interview material offers options for action that can counteract a possible worsening of educational disadvantages and help (re-)think school and teaching based on the experiences gained during the lockdown.

Young children will ultimately need to be vaccinated to stop the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Initial studies of vaccine were performed in adults. Randomized controlled trials are the gold standard. In the COVID-19 pandemic, many questions need to be answered about the ethics and feasibility of these trials. Given the harms of the COVID-19 pandemic and the now-known efficacy of the vaccines in adults and teens, the question of whether clinical equipoise exists for a placebo-controlled trial of vaccines in younger children remains. Parents may be reluctant to enroll children in these trials because they want their child to receive the vaccine or because they are worried about vaccines or clinical trials in general. One option for gathering data on tolerability and efficacy in children would be to use a nonrandomized trial to enroll parents willing to vaccinate their children and those who are hesitant. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of such an open-label trial that could provide guidance for future pandemics.

The COVID-19 pandemic and call for social justice is occurring when the United States, unlike its peer countries, has already experienced a steady 20-year rise in maternal morbidity and mortality with pregnant women today facing a 50 percent higher risk of mortality than their mothers.  Most vulnerable are women of color, black and American Indian/Alaska Native women, who have experienced longstanding disparities in access to and quality of healthcare and may begin pregnancy with hypertension, diabetes, and obesity, complications known to be more common in women enduring segregation. Initially, the race-related health disparities and resultant disproportionately higher rates of COVID-19 cases and mortality in indigenous communities and black, latins, or other communities of color were mistakenly considered innate racial differences. More recently, these higher rates have been attributed to underlying social, structural, and environmental determinants of health including resource inequities, inadequate housing, and occupational and environmental hazards that result in greater exposure to and less protection from COVID-19.

This report focuses on the impacts of the pandemic on learning proficiency, specifically as measured by Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicator 4.1.1. Over the last couple of decades, there has been a growing awareness of how crucial learning proficiency, especially that of younger children, is for human development.  The evidence  is  clear  that  improvements  in  proficiency  underpin  future  economic development,  and  the  building  of  more  cohesive  and  equal societies.  The indicators  on  learning proficiency are among the most discussed indicators within the SDG framework.

As older adults, health care workers, firefighters, and others roll up their sleeves for a COVID-19 vaccine, there's a flurry of research to get shots to children, for whom no vaccine has yet been authorized. Even though young people are less likely to fall seriously ill, doctors and scientists agree that vaccinating them is crucial for their own protection and that of the broader population. And because companies already have solid data from adult trials, they are running smaller studies in children that focus on safety and immune responses to COVID-19 vaccines.

Children’s lives are increasingly mediated by digital technologies. Yet, when it comes to understanding the long-term effects of internet use and online experiences on their well-being, mental health or resilience, the best we can do is make an educated guess. Our need for this knowledge has become even more acute as internet use rises during COVID-19. This report explores what has been learned from the latest research about children’s experiences and outcomes relating to the internet and digital technologies. It aims to inform policy-makers, educators, child-protection specialists, industry and parents on the best evidence, and it proposes a future research agenda.

COVID-19 is having unprecedented impacts on children and families across the globe; however, these are not being evenly experienced. While the challenges of caregiving are increasing for most families, the effects are particularly acute for those already engaged in low-wage or in-kind work, often in the informal economy where there are few safeguards. Caregivers are stretched, and there is a lack of quality, affordable childcare, with limited access to social protection, services and support to address the multiple and cumulative risks associated with the pandemic, as well as persistent poverty, systemic inequality and discrimination.

Abstract COVID-19 pandemic is prompting multiple stressors-including control strategies such as lockdown- which may impact child and adolescent mental health. 1,529 caregivers answered an online questionnaire about emotional and behavioral symptoms of youths (4-18 years old) using the Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC).

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the formal schooling system in India, as it has across the globe, causing massive pressure on the online education sector. This paper analyses the state of digitalised education in India. It outlines current government guidelines on digital-mode schooling, and uses the case of Maharashtra’s five-year-old efforts at digitalising government schools to gauge preparedness for implementing the guidelines. It highlights systemic weaknesses in educators’ pedagogical capacities, critiques the assumption that the availability of digital tools is sufficient to cater to the requirements of online education, and calls for the creation of policies on online education that are context-specific.

This working paper discusses the impacts of COVID-19 on public investments in human capital in the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) region. It is based on a review of economic outlook reports and forecasts as well as new projections of social sector spending trends in 2020 and 2021. The main objective is to stimulate discussion among UNICEF country offices, governments, and development partners on appropriate fiscal policy and budgetary responses to safeguard the situation of children.

A majority of governments around the world unprecedentedly closed schools in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper quantitatively investigates the macroeconomic and distributional consequences of school closures through intergenerational channels in the medium and long-term. The model economy is a dynastic overlapping generations general equilibrium model in which schools, in the form of public education investments, complement parental investments in producing children ís human capital.

On 5 April 2020, UN Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted a “horrifying global surge in domestic violence” since Governments around the world had begun imposing lockdowns, quarantines and movement restrictions in order to control the spread of COVID-19. In his remarks, the Secretary General noted that in some countries calls to gender-based violence (GBV) support services had doubled.1 Similarly, a plethora of reports from around the world have signaled an increase in reported cases of gender-based violence – particularly intimate partner violence – since the beginning of the pandemic. However, in some places, the service provision statistics actually show the opposite – that fewer GBV survivors are reaching out for support from service providers as compared to the levels seen prior to COVID-19.

COVID-19 as well as age assessment procedures can expose unaccompanied minors to a higher risk of an insufficient protection and access to healthcare. This paper examines he situation of unaccompanied children in detention in Greece in order to elaborate current circumstances and challenges regarding access to medical healthcare for those detained on the Greek islands as well as homeless children on the mainland. The work of Non-Governmental-Organizations (NGOs) as a parallel healthcare system to the national and local healthcare system is also examined as well as the practical challenges and barriers within the country.