Children over the age of 12 should be wearing masks depending on the Covid-19 situation in their country, the World Health Organisation is recommending.
Advice published on the WHO website says children over 12 should come under the same category as adults.
At Alert Level 3 in Auckland, the Ministry of Health is highly recommending the use of masks when out in public.
Elsewhere in New Zealand, at Alert Level 2, it says masks should be considered in situations where physical distancing isn’t possible.
When questioning when a mask may or may not be necessary, WHO advises to don one when you cannot guarantee a distance of at least one metre in a place where there is widespread transmission of the virus.
Wilson Longhurst got the scissors out and got to work.
It admits little is known about how children transmit the virus but cites evidence that teenagers can infect others in the same way as adults, The BBC reports.
For children aged between six and 11, the WHO advises taking into account how widespread the transmission of the virus is and whether the child is interacting with high-risk individuals such as the elderly.
Children aged five and under should not normally wear masks, the WHO said.
France recently made it mandatory for all children over 11, and a number of schools in the UK are taking it upon themselves to require students to wear them even though this is not official government guidance, The BBC reports.
Yesterday the world hit a grim coronavirus milestone with 800,000 confirmed deaths and more than 23 million confirmed cases, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.
Officials believe the true numbers are far higher because of a lack of testing and reporting.
Twenty-two people have died from Covid-19 in New Zealand.
In the US, the nation with the most infections, health officials believe there may be 10 times more cases than the confirmed 5.6 million. The US also leads the world in deaths, with more than 175,000.
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