United Nations says open schools, China jabs 1 billion

The United Nations children’s agency has called for schools around the world to reopen amid the pandemic while Chinese officials say a billion people have been fully vaccinated in the country.

UNICEF urged education authorities to reopen schools as soon as possible in countries where millions of students are still not allowed to return to classrooms 18 months into the pandemic.

Schools in about 17 countries remain fully closed while those in 39 countries remain partially closed, according to a report released by UNICEF on Thursday.

Among those “almost completely closed” are schools usually attended by nearly 77 million students in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Panama and Kuwait.

Chinese health officials said on Thursday that more than one billion people have been fully vaccinated in the world’s most populous country.

That represents 72 per cent of its 1.4 billion people.

A National Health Commission spokesperson said 2.16 billion doses have been administered and 1.01 billion people have been fully vaccinated.

The announcement comes as China faces a new outbreak of the Delta variant in the southeastern province of Fujian, where 200 cases have been confirmed in the past six days.

Authorities have locked down affected neighbourhoods, closed schools and entertainment venues and restricted travel out of Fujian in an effort to keep the virus from spreading.

China has largely stopped the spread by imposing restrictions and mass testing whenever new cases are found.

It also limits entry to the country and requires people who arrive to quarantine in a hotel for at least two weeks.

with AP