WHO official says organization never advised school closures during pandemic

BIRMINGHAM, England

The World Health Organization (WHO) never advised countries to impose blanket lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic, and school closures caused lasting harm to children, a senior official said Thursday.

“Lockdowns were a construct that countries came up with,” Mike Ryan, deputy director general of the WHO and former head of its health emergencies program, told RTE Radio’s Morning Ireland. “We always advised targeted measures that allowed you to reduce transmission while keeping society moving forward. At no point did we advise lockdowns.”

The renowned epidemiologist said shutting down schools, in particular, left deep consequences.

“Blanketed lockdown for weeks and weeks, where children couldn’t access school, I think that had a hugely detrimental effect,” he said. “And the benefit of that, specifically, of closing schools, has not been clearly demonstrated.”

Ryan, who helped lead the global COVID-19 response during the pandemic, said fears that children were major spreaders of the virus turned out to be misguided. “Frankly, when you look back at the data, that’s certainly not supported in the evidence,” he said.

Ryan acknowledged that anti-vaccine movements grew louder during the pandemic but stressed the life-saving record of the injections.

“Vaccines have saved more lives on this planet than any other intervention in the history of our civilization,” he said. “Hundreds of millions, billions of children, have been saved over time. Let us go back and think about children choking to death with diphtheria in the 19th century, polio in the 1950s in Ireland. Ask those mothers or fathers, as they watched their children die under 5 years of age, what they thought about vaccinations.”

While he said it is important that people feel free to question what goes into their bodies, Ryan urged balance.

“I think we are in a period where we need to question everything. It’s very important that we have a healthy debate, but we also need to trust science and trust when the data tells us that these are safe and highly effective interventions,” he said.

Ryan also spoke out about the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, calling the international community’s response unacceptable.

“The children of Gaza are being intentionally starved as a weapon of war,” he said. “We’re standing to the side and literally abandoning the men, women and children of Gaza. We should not stand by and let this happen. Hostages need to be released, there needs to be a ceasefire now.”