Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The COVID-19 pandemic has closed schools around the world, forcing school systems and students to quickly attempt remote learning. A rapid response phone survey of over 1,500 high school students aged 14 to 18 in Ecuador was conducted to learn how students spend their time during the period of quarantine, examine their access to remote learning, and measure their mental health status. The data show that 59 percent of students have both an internet connection at home and a computer or tablet, 74 percent are engaging in some online or telelearning, and 86 percent have done some schoolwork on the last weekday. Detailed time-use data show most students have established similar daily routines around education, although gender and wealth differences emerge in time spent working and on household tasks. Closure of schools and social isolation are the two main problems students say they face, and while the majority are mostly happy, 16 percent have mental health scores that indicate depression.

School closure and stay-at-home, as a part of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI), have been implemented in China since February as an effective way to mitigate the spread of the virus during the COVID-19 outbreak. As concerns rose over the potential impacts of such NPI measures on children’s health, such as longer exposure to digital screens, irregular sleep pattern, weight gain, and loss of cardiorespiratory fitness [1], the Chinese Government, experts on public health, educators on school health, and teachers have been making joint and massive efforts to provide distance learning with well-organized online courses to help.

A specific response is needed to address the mental distress of children who are quarantined. There needs to be greater emphasis on designing diverse, socioculturally appropriate programs to address mental distress and provide mental health care and psychosocial supports to mitigate the effects of prolonged isolation in children.

Home quarantine may lead to families developing a variety of psychological distress. The purpose of this research is to examine the psychological status and well-being of children and their parents during 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Spain. It aims to offer testimonies and reflections of the confinement period along with its living conditions, emotional mapping and an analysis of the effects that confinement is generating on boys and girls.

This report sets out the framework for the United Nations’ urgent socio-economic support to countries and societies in the face of COVID-19, putting in practice the UN Secretary-General’s Shared Responsibility, Global Solidarity report on the same subject. It is one of three critical components of the UN’s efforts to save lives, protect people, and rebuild better, alongside the health response, led by the World Health Organization (WHO), and the humanitarian response, as detailed in the UN-led COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Response Plan.

The UN Secretary-General has launched a policy brief on the impact of COVID-19 on children. The brief lays out the ways in which the virus will impact children.  Whilst they appear largely to be spared the worst symptoms of the disease, they may well be among the biggest victims of the crisis in the long run because their education, nutrition, safety and health will be significantly undermined by the socioeconomic impact and by unintended consequences of the pandemic response. The harmful effects of this pandemic will not be distributed equally. They are expected to be most damaging for children in the poorest countries, and in the poorest neighbourhoods, and for those in already disadvantaged or vulnerable situations. This policy brief provides a deeper analysis of these effects. It identifies also a series of immediate and sustained actions for the attention of governments and policymakers.

The attention of the world is rightly focused on measures to mitigate the transmission and economic effect of the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. In this rapidly changing situation, media and social conversations are entirely dominated by the outbreak, and children are exposed to large amounts of information and high levels of stress and anxiety in the adults around them. Parents would do anything to protect their children from distress and might avoid talking about difficult feelings and events. However, research shows that even children as young as 2 years are aware of the changes around them. Sensitive and effective communication about life-threatening illness has major benefits for children and their family's long-term psychological wellbeing.