Disaster looms for millions of children as WHO warns of second peak

The coronavirus pandemic will have a “disastrous” impact on children’s rights worldwide, making them more vulnerable to forced labour and underage marriage, a rights group has said, as the World Health Organization warned of an “immediate second peak” in cases if restrictions were lifted too soon.

Millions of children would fall into extreme poverty because of the outbreak, which has left governments short of money for health and education for the young, Dutch NGO KidsRights said.

“This crisis turns back the clock on years of progress made on the wellbeing of children,” said founder and chairman Marc Dullaert as it launched its annual survey. “Therefore, a strong focus for children’s rights is needed more than ever.”

The suspension of vaccination campaigns for children also increased the risk of infant mortality, while hundreds of millions of children who normally relied on school meals were being left with no reliable source of daily nutrition.

The annual KidsRights rankings used UN data to measure how countries measure up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This year’s survey – which does not take into account the pandemic – put Iceland, Switzerland and Finland top, with Chad, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone the worst-performing countries.

The NGO’s warning came as the WHO emergencies head, Dr Mike Ryan, spoke of a potential second wave of infections at any time, especially if measures to halt the first wave were lifted too soon.

He said: “We cannot make assumptions that just because the disease is on the way down now it is going to keep going down and we are get a number of months to get ready for a second wave. We may get a second peak in this wave.”

Calls for vigilance were echoed as restrictions eased across Europe, Japan lifted its state of emergency, and people in the US marked the start of summer with Memorial Day weekend getaways.

“If we lower our guard, the infection will spread very rapidly … we need to be vigilant,” Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said. He urged people to adopt a “new lifestyle” and continue to avoid the “three Cs” – closed spaces, crowded places and close contact.

With the US death toll standing at more than 98,000, many headed en masse to beaches and parks over the weekend. Many were not wearing masks or following distancing rules – and images of packed pools and streets triggered fears of a new flare-up of the virus that has infected nearly 5.5 million worldwide and killed more than 346,000 according to the Johns Hopkins tracker.

Dr Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, said she was “very concerned” about scenes of people crowding together over the weekend. “We really want to be clear all the time that social distancing is absolutely critical. And if you can’t social distance and you’re outside, you must wear a mask,” Birx said on ABC’s This Week.

In hard-hit Spain, Madrid and Barcelona cautiously emerged from one of the world’s strictest lockdowns, with parks and cafe terraces open for the first time in more than two months.

Hundreds of people flooded Madrid’s famous Retiro Park to enjoy a stroll or a jog in the sunshine. “The reopening of Retiro brings me a feeling of serenity, gives me comfort,” said Rosa San Jose, a 50-year-old schoolteacher.

The Spanish government also announced that it would scrap quarantine for foreign arrivals from 1 July, in the hope of helping the battered tourism sector.

As gyms and swimming pools reopened in Germany, Iceland, Italy and Spain, slowing infection rates in Greece allowed restaurants to resume business a week ahead of schedule – but only for outdoor service.

However, in Sweden, which has gained international attention for not enforcing stay-at-home measures, the Covid-19 death toll passed 4,000, a much higher figure than its neighbours.

In the UK, Boris Johnson’s key adviser, Dominic Cummings, refused to resign or apologise for breaking lockdown rules, saying: “I don’t regret what I did … reasonable people might disagree.” The prime minister gave Cummings his full backing but did “regret the confusion the anger and the pain that people feel … as a country that has been going through tremendous difficulties and sufferings”. The police and crime commissioner for Durham, the area Cummings visited, has formally asked police to launch an investigation.

Hopes that anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine – the drug Donald Trump said he was taking as a precaution – could be used as a potential treatment for the virus have taken a hit after the WHO halted clinical trials “while the safety is reviewed”. Director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the decision was taken in light of a paper published last week that showed people taking the drug were at higher risk of death and heart problems.