DR MIKE RYAN, deputy director of the World Health Organization, has said the benefits of “blanketed” school closures during the Covid pandemic have not been proven.

In March 2020, then-Taoiseach Leo Varadkar made a televised address to the Irish people live from Washington, announcing a pre-emptive two-week closure of schools, colleges and childcare centres in the wake of global Covid-19 outbreak.

However, the closure lasted months, with further closures throughout 2021.

A recent survey found that three-quarters of parents whose children were in education when Covid-19 lockdowns feel their social development was negatively impacted.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1′s Morning Ireland, Ryan was asked about the impact of the Covid lockdowns on school children.

“It certainly had a massive effect on children,” said Ryan, “and just to be clear, from our perspective, we never advised lockdowns, lockdowns were a construct that the countries themselves came up with.”

Ryan said school closures were “certainly not supported in the evidence”, adding that the WHO “always advised targeted measures that will allow you to reduce transmission while keeping society moving forward”.

Ryan, who leaves the WHO tomorrow, said shut-downs should have been targeted – and this is something that needs to be looked at before another pandemic hits.

“This blanketed lockdown for weeks and weeks and weeks, where children couldn’t access school, I think that had a hugely detrimental effect, and the benefit of that has not been clearly demonstrated.

“When the next pandemic comes, and it will, the virus will be different, so let’s not play out the next pandemic. But what it does say is you need to be flexible.”

In May, the WHO announced that it was reducing its management team by nearly half due to dramatic US funding cuts. The WHO had said in April that it was facing a “salary gap” of $560m to $650m for 2026-2027 due to the withdrawal of US funding.

Ryan, a Sligo native who was also the WHO’s emergency response division director, was informed in May that he would be included in cuts to the management team. 

Presidential election

Meanwhile, Ryan confirmed that the Labour Party approached him to be their presidential candidate.

He added: “A number of people talked to me, but I’m very good at dodging bullets.”

Ryan said he was proud of his own achievements but didn’t think he was right for the candidacy. He added that he hoped the presidential election would not be used to “throw stones” at individuals.

“I just hope we use this election to reflect on and reaffirm who we are. The president represents the values that a society has, not the politics and I just hope whoever wins the election can continue to do the work President Higgins and many wonderful presidents before have done.”

Gaza ‘abandoned’

Ryan said he is “almost entirely disillusioned with the world” given what is happening in Gaza.

“We are standing to the side and literally abandoning the men, women and children of Gaza,” he said.

“The WHO is still struggling to get medical assistance in, there are thousands and thousands of children with spinal injuries, with amputation injuries. This is a tiny area that’s easily accessible from multiple countries, and yet we can’t even get basic assistance.

Children in Gaza are being intentionally starved as a weapon of war.”

He praised the Irish public’s solidarity with Palestine but added that we wished the “spectres of huger and occupation” would trigger other societies, “because the Irish can’t do it alone.”