Leaders | Must try harder

Closing the world’s schools caused children great harm

They will need help to catch up on lost learning

COVID-19 RARELY makes children very ill. In the year to April the chance of an American aged 5-14 catching and dying from the virus was about one in 500,000—roughly a tenth of a child’s chance of dying in a traffic accident in normal times. Yet schools around the world have been wholly or partly closed for about two-thirds of an academic year because of the pandemic.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Must try harder”

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