Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director of the WHO spoke on Friday August 20 on the coronavirus epidemic. – Salvatore At Nolfi / AP / SIPA
From what age should the mask be imposed on the youngest to effectively fight against coronavirus ? If in Spain the mask is compulsory from 6 years old, in France it is from 11 years old. According to’
World Health Organization (WHO), which published recommendations on the subject on Friday, children aged 12 and over should wear the mask under the same conditions as adults to fight the pandemic of
Covid-19.
In the document, the World Health Organization “recommends that children aged 12 and over be wearing masks under the same conditions as adults, especially when they cannot guarantee a distance of at least one meter from others and if transmission is generalized in the area concerned ”.
WHO hopes this outbreak will be over in less than two years
In addition, the head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, explained in a press conference: “we hope to end this pandemic in less than two years. Especially if we can unite our efforts […] and by making maximum use of the tools available and hoping that we can have additional tools like vaccines, I think we can put an end to it in a shorter timeframe than the flu of 1918 ”, said the head of the WHO. The famous
“Spanish flu” decimated 50 million people from 1918 to 1920, when malnutrition and tuberculosis made the population all the more fragile.
And unlike the Sars-Cov-2 virus, at the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic which has killed nearly 795,000 people worldwide since the first cases were reported at the end of 2019 in China, the Spanish flu had particularly hit the youngest. “In our current situation, […] the virus is more likely to spread. He can move quickly because we are more connected now, ”said the head of the WHO. “So we have a disadvantage linked to globalization. […] But we have the advantage of having better technologies, ”he said. “And we know how to stop it.” He also stressed that it was “essential” for countries to unite their efforts and reiterated his call for “global solidarity and national unity”.
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