WHO SAYS TEACHERS SHOULD BE PRIORITY GROUP FOR COVID-19 JABS

Mon 30 August 2021:

The World Health Organization (WHO) and Unicef have recommended that teachers and school staff be prioritized for COVID-19 vaccinations so that schools in Europe and Central Asia can remain open.

Measures to ensure that schools can stay open throughout the pandemic “include offering teachers and other school staff the COVID-19 vaccine as part of target population groups in national vaccination plans,” the UN agencies wrote in a statement.

The recommendation, already made by a group of WHO experts in November 2020 before the vaccination roll-out, should be done “while ensuring vaccination of vulnerable populations,” the statement said.

“This is of paramount importance for children’s education, mental health and social skills, for schools to help equip our children to be happy and productive members of society,” the director of the WHO European region, Hans Kluge, said in the statement.

“The pandemic has caused the most catastrophic disruption to education in history,” he added.

The agencies also recommended governments to vaccinate children above the age of 12, particularly those with underlying medical disorders that put them at risk of severe COVID-19 illness.

It also emphasized the significance of measures to improve the school environment during the pandemic, such as improved ventilation, smaller class sizes, social separation, and routine COVID-19 testing for students and staff.

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