Did the benefits of lockdown outweigh the harm to children’s education?

[PoisedKhakiUser]

AIBU to ask whether the benefits of lockdown - saving lives and protecting health - outweighed the damage it did to children’s education and future life chances? I feel like kids lost out on so much during this time, and I wonder if the cost was too high.

We didn't act in the best interests of vulnerable people anyway. Because we couldn't, as they weren't one unified bloc with the same interests. We acted in the interests of those who were more vulnerable to covid than they were to restrictions. Not the same thing.

And don't get me started on people not being able to visit people in care homes. Or go to funerals. It was totally insane.

I don’t know if it would have helped. I’m in Melbourne Australia. We shut down on 23rd March 2020 and had what I heard was the longest/most days shutdown anywhere in the world. The rules were absolutely draconian. Our children lost the best part of 2 years of their education.

In all honesty my eldest was way behind, dyslexic, and had developed all sorts of work avoidance strategies for school. Home schooling meant he got taken back to basics. Phonics and hot housed. He’s at high school now and top sets so was hugely beneficial educationally.

In contrast my middle child struggled as naturally more social.

I think it’s not the same experience for all children, so it’s really hard to have a blanket viewpoint

Spanish lockdown rules were very strict

New Zealand was horrendous! Unbelievably strict and honestly my family were hostages in their own country well beyond U.K. restrictions. I doubt we will get over it in our life time.

Same. In the UK, we kept schools closed in June and July even after deaths had well dropped and we'd obviously past the peak of that wave. It meant pushing the return date back to September and closer to flu season. I don't know that going a bit earlier in spring would've changed anything.

And you know what? All this carnage world wide and we are STILL no closer to an answer or explanation.

So if you are a journalist op, do the world a favour and get to the real truth of the global tragedy. That is the very least we are owed - an explanation.

Hospital rate was very low that summer. Dc should have been back already

And all back the next Jan

Probably not, but two weeks before schools were allowed to lock down, there were so many staff off ill in the school I was working in at the time. There were classes already having to do online learning as there was nobody left to teach them. I think that if schools hadn't closed (for all except key worker's children and the vulnerable) then there would have been times, possibly many times, when classes would have had to learn online anyway.

I don’t think this is strictly true. Or at least they weren’t open in the way that we might consider being open today.
There was a national move to distance learning for upper secondary, some local areas also moved lower secondary to distance learning.
In the remaining lower schools and primaries it was a bit of a free for all with decisions about when to move in and out of distance learning being left with the school and local public health officials. The only guidance being that moving to distance learning should be a last resort after other infection control measure were used. In practice this meant that while schools sometimes closed proactively to stop the spread of infections they usually closed reactively when they didn’t have enough teachers or absence was too high. Even if schools were open that doesn’t mean children were in as they couldn’t attend if they had any signs of illness however small or where living with somebody who had a Covid infection.

I could only imagine the threads on here in 2020 if the government had suggested that children couldn’t go to school if they had a headache or a runny nose.

And, as I said above there may be some issues with excess death rates in primary and lower secondary age children that don’t exist in countries where there were national lockdowns. So it wasn’t exactly risk free for the children.

The first lockdown we were in it together, just learning about covid. The problem came with tiers and some places able to open and some couldn't. Schools staying closed was to protect the vulnerable not children and masks in schools lasted far longer than elsewhere. I think making children try to learn in such uncomfortable and variable situations was unfair given pub's and restaurants were open at that point. Parent of the children knew which of their relatives were vulnerable by then and who they should avoid their children visiting.

This quote is taken from the NIH National Library for Medicine
”During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweden was among the few countries that did not enforce strict lockdown measures but instead relied more on voluntary and sustainable mitigation recommendations. While supported by the majority of Swedes, this approach faced rapid and continuous criticism. Unfortunately, the respectful debate centered around scientific evidence often gave way to mudslinging. However, the available data on excess all-cause mortality rates indicate that Sweden experienced fewer deaths per population unit during the pandemic (2020–2022) than most high-income countries and was comparable to neighboring Nordic countries through the pandemic. An open, objective scientific dialogue is essential for learning and preparing for future outbreaks”.

It’s awful that Spanish children weren’t even allowed outside. And many lived in flats. So unhealthy. Yep we weren’t the only country that got it very wrong.

Absolutely, the country collapsed and the only thing that mattered was covid...
Remember these awful blackmail posters from the government?
It really boiled down to let's lock everyone up and restrict everything, fuck people's mental health because we have to avoid somebody maybe catching something, that IF they catch it, COULD make them ill...

I think it’s surprising how little children missed in terms of education. Makes me wonder how much more the curriculum could be condensed to be honest. And I had children at exam years during lockdowns.

Meant to add this!

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecaf.12611

etc - like I said, I don't think we will really know for a long time, but it's certainly not disproven.

This....one thousand times over....

I think what's come out of lockdown is that decision makers never truly considered the impact on the most vulnerable groups who it impacted the worst I.e children in poverty or in violent homes and if there is ever a similar situation again those without voices need representation.

It probably saved my life. And lots of people like me. I’m 42.

My teenager would definitely have suffered more if I had died than if she was stuck at home with me trying to teach her.

No it damaged children and we will be living with the consequences for decades.

You just come across as stupid. You didn’t get the point of lockdown. It was about overwhelming hospitals. So yes it was worth it.

"masks in schools lasted far longer than elsewhere."

Such gaslighting. Retail workers kicked off when wearing masks were made optional in shops, because this meant most people would no longer wear them

Masks in schools were Always optional and we're never mandatory as they were in supermarkets etc. restrictions in schools were more lax than any other workplace

Masks in my dcs' two secondary schools were compulsory for months