Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the lives of children and adolescents around the world. Hence, this study aimed to examine how the pandemic has impacted children and adolescents in Brazil through an ethical analysis. An interpretive analysis of Brazilian research on child and adolescent health during the pandemic was conducted. Recognizing this ethical dimension is pivotal to shedding more light on how responses to crisis situations, such as the current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, can be shaped and where the priorities for action are according to all interested parties, situating the child between these parts of interest. Our analysis highlighted both direct and indirect effects surrounding the decision-making processes for children in the COVID-19 pandemic reality. These decisional processes must sustain the child’s right to participation to ascertain that the action taken is in the child’s best interests. Nevertheless, the Brazilian reality has shown a structural exclusion of children’s voices in decisions affecting them, particularly concerning the effects of the pandemic on their lives. Further studies must be conducted to deepen the knowledge about children’s best interests and their participation in the actions planned during the pandemic.

Since the beginning of the year, the world’s attention has rightly been focused on the spread of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the implementation of drastic mitigation strategies to limit disease transmission. However, public health information campaigns tailored to children are very rare. Now more than ever, at a time when some governments are taking populations out of lockdown and youth are returning to schools, children around the world need to fully grasp the modes of transmission of the disease, the health risks, the scientific notions of the immune system, the value of barrier measures, and the progress of scientific research. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, comics can be very useful for communicating quickly and effectively abstract and important information to children who might be under the influence of a large amount of sometimes contradictory information. Conveying precise, reliable, and accessible information to children is key in a world overwhelmingly impacted by the outbreak.