Children and COVID-19 Research Library

Reduced access to school meals during public health emergencies can accelerate food insecurity and nutritional status, particularly for low-income children in urban areas. To prevent the exacerbation of health disparities, there is a need to understand the implementation of meal distribution among large urban school districts during emergencies and to what degree these strategies provide equitable meal access. This case study of four large urban school districts during the COVID-19 pandemic aims to address these knowledge gaps. Guided by the Getting to Equity (GTE) framework, this mixed-methods study evaluates emergency meal distribution and strategy implementation in four large urban school districts (Chicago Public Schools, Houston Independent School District, Los Angeles Unified School District, and New York City Department of Education).

This report shows how children are less affected clinically by COVID-19 than adults. Nonetheless, children are impacted by the pandemic’s indirect effects, not least from separation or loss in their own families. Projections suggest that over a million preventable child deaths might occur due to decreased access to food and disruption of essential health services. Children risk missing out on growth monitoring, preventive care, and timely management of acute disease and injuries.

Although substantial progress has been made in many aspects of child health in the past two decades, the COVID-19 pandemic and its wide-ranging effects are threatening some of these hard-won gains. Public health measures such as lockdown, school closures, and restrictions in population movement—while necessary to halt virus transmission—are causing prolonged disruption to societal functioning and exacerbating inequalities worldwide. The global Human Development Index (HDI) is projected to decline this year for the first time since 1990, effectively erasing all progress in human development made in the past 6 years.With resources diverted to tackle the pandemic, many clinical and community health services for children have reduced in capacity. A modelling study by Timothy Roberton and colleagues in The Lancet Global Health estimated that a 9·8–18·5% reduction in coverage of essential maternal and child health services and a 10% increase in child wasting prevalence would lead to 42 240 additional child deaths per month across 118 low-income and middle-income countries.

The article calls for adopting a public health approach toward pandemic-related increases in domestic violence ought to be heeded. Adoption of their framework for evaluating and addressing domestic violence and child abuse and neglect can create public health benefits that far outlast the current crisis. School systems and youth-serving organisations can and should play a vital role in addressing the increased abuse and neglect of children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To date, few data on paediatric COVID-19 have been published, and most reports originate from China. This study aimed to capture key data on children and adolescents with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection across Europe to inform physicians and health-care service planning during the ongoing pandemic.

As cases of COVID-19 surge worldwide and threaten to overwhelm life-saving health services, the survival of mothers and children is at great risk. Henrietta Fore, Executive Director of UNICEF, highlights the risks for maternal and child health in low- and middle-income countries if essential health services are disrupted as a result of COVID-19.

While coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to spread across the globe, many countries have decided to close schools as part of a physical distancing policy to slow transmission and ease the burden on health systems. The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization estimates that 138 countries have closed schools nationwide, and several other countries have implemented regional or local closures. These school closures are affecting the education of 80% of children worldwide. Although scientific debate is ongoing with regard to the effectiveness of school closures on virus transmission, the fact that schools are closed for a long period of time could have detrimental social and health consequences for children living in poverty, and are likely to exacerbate existing inequalities. We discuss two mechanisms through which school closures will affect poor children in the USA and Europe.

In response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, the Chinese Government has ordered a nationwide school closure as an emergency measure to prevent spreading of the infection. Public activities are discouraged. The Ministry of Education estimates that more than 220 million children and adolescents are confined to their homes; this includes 180 million primary and secondary students and 47 million preschool children). Thanks to the strong administrative system in China, the emergency home schooling plan has been rigorously implemented. Massive efforts are being made by schools and teachers at all levels to create online courses and deliver them through TV broadcasts and the internet in record time. The new virtual semester has just started in many parts of the country, and various courses are offered online in a well organised manner. These actions are helping to alleviate many parents' concerns about their children's educational attainment by ensuring that school learning is largely undisrupted.