World Health Organisation 'at no point' advised lockdowns, senior global health figure says
The World Health Organisation (WHO) never advised countries to impose lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic which led to the closure of schools and had a "hugely detrimental effect" on children, the group's deputy director general has said.
"Lockdowns were a construct that countries came up with. We always advised targeted measures that allowed you to reduce transmission while keeping society moving forward," Dr Mike Ryan said on Thursday. "At no point did we advise lockdowns."
"There were certain circumstances where you had massive, overwhelming disease in hospitals, people lying in corridors, and there was a need to shut down society as a whole, but in a targeted way," he told RTÉ Radio's Morning Ireland programme.
"Blanketed lockdown for weeks and weeks, where children couldn't access school, I think that had a hugely detrimental effect. And the benefit of that, specifically, of closing schools, has not been clearly demonstrated."
The perception during the pandemic that children were vectors of the disease was misguided, he added. "Frankly, when you look back at the data, that's certainly not supported in the evidence."
In his role as executive director of the WHO's health emergencies programme, Dr Ryan helped lead the international health response during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Asked about the growth of the anti-vaccine movement, Dr Ryan acknowledged these views had been "amplified" during the pandemic but urged people to remember the overwhelmingly positive impact of vaccinations on humanity.
"Vaccines have saved more lives on this planet than any other intervention in the history of our civilisation. 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 five years of age, what they thought about vaccinations."
People have a right to question anything that's put in their body, he said. "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."
Asked to comment on the ongoing death and destruction in Gaza, Dr Ryan said he was "apoplectic" and "almost entirely disillusioned with the world on this particular point".
In certain humanitarian crises, aid agencies struggle to deliver aid to affected people but Gaza is "easily accessible from multiple countries and yet we can't even get basic assistance".
"The children of Gaza are being intentionally starved as a weapon of war," he said, adding that thousands are suffering with spinal and amputation injuries. "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."
Dr Ryan is in Dublin this week to attend the Government's National Child Poverty Summit and will retire from his WHO role on Friday. He warned that the international community, including Ireland, was failing to invest in its children.
While targeted finances are required to support children in this country, poverty is not only measured through euros in your pocket, he added.
"We fail to see that the most dangerous thing to our civilisation in society is someone with nothing left to lose, and we're leaving a lot of children behind us," he said.
Dr Ryan shut down rumours that he was considering a presidential bid but said he hoped the campaign could be used to reaffirm the values of Irish society and would not turn into a chance "to throw stones at an individual".