Prince Charles warns virus may devastate students' futures

LONDON (AP) — Prince Charles has warned that up to 1 million young people in Britain may need “urgent help’’ to protect their futures from the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, as politicians debated whether to keep British university students from returning home for Christmas.

The Prince of Wales said the social and economic crisis created by the coronavirus is reminiscent of the upheavals of the 1970s, when youth unemployment was one of the pressing issues facing British society.

“There has never been a time as uniquely challenging as the present, when the pandemic has left perhaps another million young people needing urgent help to protect their futures,’’ he wrote in the Sunday Telegraph. “The task ahead is unquestionably vast, but it is not insurmountable.”

The comments came as the spread of COVID-19 accelerates across the U.K., prompting the government to impose new restrictions.

Lawmakers and public health experts have criticized Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative government for problems with the national test-and-trace program that was supposed to help control the spread of the disease and reduce the need for limits on social interactions.

Young people have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic, even though they are less likely to become seriously ill. The closure of schools during the spring coronavirus lockdown cancelled national achievement tests in Britain and threw university admissions into disarray. First-year students have had to forego social events seen as a rite of passage at the start of their college careers, and the job prospects for graduates look bleak as unemployment rises.

Now many university students in Britain — who have just begun returning to campus after the summer holidays — are facing increased restrictions amid COVID-19 outbreaks in residence...