WHO and Unicef say schools must stay open

Of the 53 countries in the WHO’s Europe region, 44 closed their schools nationwide at the height of the pandemic’s first wave in April 2020. Picture: Ben Birchall

Schools across Europe must stay open and be made safer for staff and children, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Unicef have demanded, as a new term gets underway with the highly transmissible Delta variant still dominant.

“The pandemic has caused the most catastrophic disruption to education in history,” said Hans Kluge, the head of the WHO’s Europe region. “It is vital that classroom-based learning continues uninterrupted.”