Kids still feeling the effects of lockdowns…

[sloanedanger]

I just got caught reading a really interesting thread on Twitter started by a teacher:

“Is anyone else thinking we are starting to see the impact of 2 years of disruption and time at home, due to COVID 19, in schools? Extreme behaviours? Some pupils very emotional and struggling to regulate? Low attendance compared to normal? Winter bugs hitting hard?”

A lot of the comments say Y3 is the worst, others saying Years 7 and 8.

My DS is in Year 2 and often struggles with emotions and self regulation at school. It’s made me think, perhaps there’s a reason why linked to the pandemic. Lockdown was hard, DP and I were home with very young DC, trying to work, poor mental health, emotions high. Very little patience.

@orchid220

"I wasn't using the population density as a counter argument. My post was in response to another post stating that there weren't more covid cases in Finland vs. Sweden in 2020. There probably were as there were a lot more covid deaths in Sweden per head of population during that time."

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OK so if we are dismissing the population density argument, which by the way I would fully agree with, then how do you account for the fact that Sweden which didn't close schools had half the number of Covid deaths as the UK which did close schools.

Could it be something to do with meatballs /IKEA / Abba or could it be that the closure of schools really had bugger all impact on the number of Covid deaths?

During the first lockdown I had a 3 turning 4 year old and a 1yo.

I would say the younger one was too young to be affected. She’d benefited from a normal first year while I was on maternity leave and was still young enough that she didn’t necessarily need peer stimulation. Those a year older I think would have missed out at critical times for social development. Those a year younger would have had mothers in isolation during mat leave, disrupted access to maternity and post-natal care.

my 3yo found lockdown very hard indeed. She’s a social creature and it made her miserable. She had a key worker place in the winter school closure so was still able to attend school in reception on my working days. But, she hated that day of home learning. We did have 2 weeks of home learning when her bubble broke. She’s bright and mature and. I don’t think there will be longer term consequences for her. But, Many of her peers would have had a more disrupted reception and her year as a whole wasn't socially ready for year 1.

I do think for some children the effects of the pandemic will be long lasting. It also seems anecdotally that there is greater need in years R-Y3. Obviously at the older end the exam years will have been massively effected too but I’m very different ways.

Well, according to an article in The Telegraph which I found online, the Swedish population has far better resourced healthcare services and a slimmer population, two factors that would undoubtedly make a difference to outcomes.

Better healthcare, they brought in restrictions/advice before it was too late and probably a more sensible population. They generally also have larger classrooms with fewer pupils in each one compared with the UK.

They had far less ‘restrictions’ than we had though. Most things stayed open. They were ‘advised’ to do things rather than it being the law. Great approach. So it was nothing to do with them bringing in early restrictions. The government advised working from home where possible and advised social distancing.

Their healthcare is far better yes and this played a big part. But at the time they were very much criticised for not locking down. Now it seems as though for them, it was the right choice.

I would certainly agree with both these points:
Sweden"s average BMI is 24.1 compared to 27.2 for the UK. Indeed of all developed countries Japan has the lowest BMI and also had the lowest Covid mortality rate.
On health care Sweden spends a third more on healthcare and I don't think many would disagree that the NHS has been underfunded for years.

However all of this doesn't take away from my point that whether schools were or were not shut during the pandemic really had no impact on Covid death rates.

@RedToothBrush
@JenniferBarkley

"Lockdown was vital at first whilst we figured out what was actually going on and how we needed to deal with the disease.

Why?

Well the mortality rate of SARS is 9.5% and MERS is 35%.

These are the closest related diseases we knew to covid."

++++

This is actually a really good example of the deliberate scaremongering and misinformation during the pandemic that led to the public support for the lockdowns including school closures.

What @RedToothBrush has posted on the mortality rate of SARS and MERS is correct and again that both MERS and SARS being types of coronavirus is also correct.

What @RedToothBrush has deliberately omitted and was well known is that the four other types of coronavirus are forms of the common cold where deaths are very rare.

It also highlights the one sidedness of the misinformation and false statements during the pandemic. If for example one had posted during the pandemic that Covid was no more severe than a common cold given that the four other coronaviruses were types of the common cold (and omitting SARS and MERS) then this would have been correctly called out for deliberate misinformation. However @RedToothBrush post just mentioning the mortality rate of SARS and MERS and deliberately omitting the four other common cold coronaviruses doesn't get call-out for misinformation.

@1dayatatime - I fail to see what existing human coronaviruses have to do with a newly mutated zoonotic virus, though? You are pretending to compare like with like, but you actually aren’t.

Try this article - particularly the viral family tree on page 3 for a better understanding the relationship of coronaviruses.

It's important to note that simply because Covid and colds are both coronaviruses does not mean they share the same characteristics, treatments and outcomes.

https://mdpi-res.com/dattachment/biology/biology-10-00733/articlee_deploy/biology-10-00733-v2.pdf?version=1627981730

@1dayatatime

Apologies - I see you weren't saying that now!

@orchid220

There was plenty of aggression on both sides. The CEV (many of whom still are btw) probably had to deal with the most.

Absolutely agree with this.

This is actually a really good example of the deliberate scaremongering and misinformation during the pandemic that led to the public support for the lockdowns including school closures.

Are you sure it wasn't the awful scenes from the hospitals in Italy that did that?

Before the official school closures in March schools were more than half empty due to parents taking their kids out (my school) or already closed due to lack of staff (my DCs' school). No one has actually been able to explain how it would have been better if, in those circumstances, schools had tried to limp on.

Hmm let me try and clarify.

Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that cause respiratory illnesses in humans and animals. SARS and the common cold coronaviruses for example are avian in origin, MERS rather bizarrely originated in camels and Covid 19 most likely from bats.

All seven types mutate (as do most other viruses)

So I I am not pretending all seven types are zoonotic in origin, I am stating it's a scientific fact as is the point that most viruses mutate. I concede that Covid is "new" or at least newly identified with some evidence showing that the first covid cases were in 2012:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/seven-year-covid-trail-revealed-l5vxt7jqp

But my point is that @RedToothBrush deliberately omitted mentioning the four known relatively harmless coronaviruses, only focusing on the two lethal types (MERS and SARS).

@noblegiraffe

"Are you sure it wasn't the awful scenes from the hospitals in Italy that did that?

Before the official school closures in March schools were more than half empty due to parents taking their kids out (my school) or already closed due to lack of staff (my DCs' school). No one has actually been able to explain how it would have been better if, in those circumstances, schools had tried to limp on."

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Absolutely many parents were scared shitless on the media reporting at the time. And to be blunt I didn't have a problem with parents choosing to keep their children at home. Besides less children in a classroom reduces the risk of transmission as well as making teaching a smaller class easier.

What I do object to is that freedom of choice being taken away by the Government ordered school closures. I also object to the failure to introduce (at a much earlier stage) the wearing of face masks by pupils and other sage guarding measures rather than go for the nuclear option of shutting schools down completely.

But what I really really object to is the failure of the Government to deliver on the promised post Covid "catch up" funding of some £13.5 billion.

This now seems to have been quietly forgotten about or now dismissed as unaffordable all at the same time as teachers and pupils are supposed to pick up where they left off and pretend that the Covid school closures never happened or didn't impact children's education.

Absolutely many parents were scared shitless on the media reporting at the time.

Are you saying that the situation in Italy was merely "media reporting" and not actually happening?

"And to be blunt I didn't have a problem with parents choosing to keep their children at home. Besides less children in a classroom reduces the risk of transmission as well as making teaching a smaller class easier."

You clearly have no idea what it was like in schools at the time. Very little teaching was going on in schools as no one knew what was going on, kids and teachers were disappearing daily and kids were panicking every time anyone coughed. And the kids who were at home were getting nothing.

It does take away your point. Compared with countries that closed schools and had similar health services and demographics i.e. Denmark, Norway and Finland, covid deaths in Sweden were higher. This means that when everything else was equal, closing schools reduced covid deaths.

There was a thing ignore what was happening in China, but the world took note of Italy.
There was a real fear of the NHS not being able to treat people. And people who could be saved dying because of lack of treatment.
I know someone in NHS procurement being asked to source 1000s of bodybags.

Once things had settled people were still reluctant to have kids back in school but someone also explained to me, Vaccines were Plan A, if they failed then building natural immunity in kids and younger adults was the unofficial Plan B.

Did English secondary kids have to wear masks all day at any point in time? I think they were mandatory in Scotland secondaries from August 2020 to May 22? Happy for someone with secondary aged kids / teacher to correct me.

Great approach if advice works. The Swedish are known to trust government agencies and follow advice but the UK not so much.

@noblegiraffe

"Are you saying that the situation in Italy was merely "media reporting" and not actually happening?"

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Italy was one of the first countries in Europe to be impacted by Covid with the first cases diagnosed in February 2020. Although there is evidence on lung cancer screenings that it was prevalent before September 2019.

Once diagnosis of Covid started coming in Italy tried to handle it with very strict isolation measures (as did the UK with early patients whipped off to secure highly infectious disease isolation hospitals).

However given the sheer number of patients this wasn't feasible (as it isn't today) leading to scenes of beds in corridors etc heavily reported in the media at the time. The actual death toll in these initial phases (peaking at c 400 per day) was lower than later phases.

In short you could easily recreate in the UK today the scenes witnessed in Italy in March 2020 by insisting that everyone who is diagnosed with Covid must go to an isolation hospital and be treated by doctors in Hazmat.

You appear to be viewing the situation with the benefit of hindsight.

I mean, you're suggesting that Italy overreacted in the face of an unknown, new, and highly contagious virus that was killing people, and that the media were wrong for reporting exactly what was happening in other countries.

Are you suggesting that the likelihood of one of the common cold human coronaviruses that has been common in humans for a very long time spontaneously mutating to become lethal is the same as a newly mutated animal virus not yet specialised to humans initially being pretty lethal? Or are you admitting that recent history demonstrated that newly mutated animal coronaviruses could be lethal and that therefore another one seemingly suddenly appearing in China, shortly after SARS and MERS was legitimately a cause of alarm?

Its disgusting @EmmaAgain22 Awards being dished out before an enquiry shouldnt be happening.

They didn't bring in restrictions though, that's the whole point. They were basically carry on as normal, but be a bit careful. My sister lives there and was, more or less, going about life as normal. With a bit more hand sanitiser and handwashing.

It doesn't though. Because schools weren't the only restriction they didn't impose. They basically imposed nothing at all. So there is no way you can say schools open = the increased deaths.