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.

Brilliant bloke. My mum was in a home which used a lot of agency staff, I suspect that was the problem.

It's true, the lockdowns we had in 2020 and 2021 could never have existed before the internet age. I never understand when people try and pretend that because we've had the concept of quarantine for millennia, that amounts to the same thing.

That said, I don't think another lockdown for anything would be possible at present. Because although the internet age is a prerequisite, it's also not enough by itself. There needs to be a disease that's scary enough to make people willing to limit their behaviour, because it's not like we have a state that could enforce lockdown if the population didn't want it. But it also needs to not be so scary that societal functioning is threatened. Covid fell quite neatly within what was a small space in the early 2020s. I don't think it actually exists any more.

No it definitely didn't and I had older school children who suffered as a result of the pro longed school closures. And for one I utilised the key worker place I was offered (she was 13)
Schools should have reopened to all in June 2020 just like pubs and shops.

The failure to reopen schools in June 2020 is one of the more difficult policies to defend and understand.

Whatever one thinks of the 2020 and 2021 lockdowns, the rationale is obvious. The first because we were facing something brand new and the second to buy time for vaccination to kick in. I accept that not everyone thinks these were justified, especially the second, but there's an obvious theoretical case. There wasn't at all for keeping schools closed in the final half term.

My children's school was a worksheet school. BECAUSE MANY CHILDREN COULDNT ACCESS LIVE ONLINE LESSONS. Not because the school didn't care. They were running a food bank, sourcing old phobes/tablets and providing SIM cards, producing all worksheets in two forms (printable and fill in on a device) plus giving out work packs, while every teacher also was in with key worker children...

Saying the schools were poor in a bit insulting.

I said some schools. Not your school, obviously.

Our school was poor.

I don't blame them though. They were expected to teach kids in school, and it was about 40% in the 2021 lockdown, at the same time as those at home, without the curriculum being suspended like it was in 2020. And they didn't get the extra resources for it.

Sorry, can get a bit sensitive about it. The fact is... the education wasn't as good as other schools. But they tried.

People go on about how their kids weren't affected due to seeing friends, having online school etc, and then say children who were affected aren't "resilient". My children were a lot luckier than most at their school. Ironically it suited us as the Army camp we lived on had really poor Internet connection.

I think it must have been really hard for children- and for parents too. I hope your children are ok and that you are too.

Eyam, 1665.

My DS was so much happier not going into school, found it easier to learn at home and made more progress. However I am mindful that it was detrimental for many children and overall did a lot more harm than good. The lockdowns probably went on for too long but the earliest was necessary when dealing with such an unknown.

It certainly changed the nature of work culture, permanently I think.

@bozzabollix the question isn't just about healthcare collapsing tho it's whether preventing a collapse of health care vs the harm to our kids was worth it. Not locking down looks like turning away the elderly/vulnerable to die keeping the NHS going for those likely to survive not trying to treat everyone.

How that would hit staffs mental health is a bigger question than the deaths, but you also have to see staff as adults vs the harm to our kids.

We could have done so much better for everyone

Locking down by force the vulnerable by mandate, this could have been done via an app linked to your NHS record that you had to present to enter a shop etc. AI could be used to search your record for key words with any risk factors requiring review before a pass is issued.

Closing care homes with a few either army or volunteers remaining to provide minimal care. You could have offered staff considerable money to do this.

Losing home help - yes they wouldn't have been living in the best conditions but meals etc could have been left at the door or people could have isolated with their relatives. We combined our vulnerable after two weeks quarantine into one house with someone working from home living in to help.

Challenge trials - paid or in exchange for lighter sentences/early release. I would have followed that by mass manufacturing then using the army/police/fire to go door to door for forced vaccination of those at risk so it was done by the end of 2020 come what may.

The first word is the clue. Eyam was a small settlement, not an entire country. It is therefore unlike the 2020 and 2021 lockdowns.

1665 isn't much like 2020.

But lockdown in 2020/1 was largely based on small communities, it was even part of the official lexicon - bubbles. Every street was several dozen Eyams, family bubbles with varying degrees of limited interconnectedness and isolation. The shopping was paid for by non-contact means, placed on the doorstep and the driver stepped back before you picked it up.

Eyam has a lot more in common with our most recent lockdown experiences than you think. A nationwide lockdown only works because of the Eyam-like communities that were created within the population.

Yes, 1665 isn't much like 2020. That's the point.

And no, lockdown in the UK in 2020-1 was a nationally imposed policy. Restrictions were agreed centrally, as those of us in Greater Manchester are particularly well placed to tell you. That's the precise opposite of what happened in Eyam, where the community had agency and chose for themselves.

Many people this time round continued to travel outside of their areas for work, unlike Eyam, which is one of the reasons the local tiers system was particularly idiotic. Lots of us travelled outside our local areas to access those shopping and recreation facilities that were still available too.

You're also painting quite a narrow picture of 2020-1. There was significant variation in the levels of connectedness in the most recent lockdowns. Some people were in bubbles. Others weren't in the slightest. In person food shopping continued throughout, some shops still used cash. People used busy public transport like the Tube and packed buses in major cities, often travelling from area to area.

So as I said, the lockdowns we had in 2020-1 could never have existed before the internet age. The fact that people knew each other and in many cases had community in 2020-1 certainly doesn't change that.

You are missing the point. In early 2020 we had such limited information to go on aside from watching the likes of Italy and China. Many at the time were suggesting earlier lockdowns would be shorter. I cannot prove anything any more than you can prove Covid is the sole contributor to a general decline in MH. It certainly did not help, but neither does the one size fits all school approaches, relentless screen use and social media before children should even be on there. There is soo much that makes up the big picture in regards to the MH of our children, lockdown is one of them but by no means all.
It is perfectly logical that there would have been more deaths without lockdown and again this was about relieving the pressures on the NHS who were on their knees and not even equipped. Schools were a single factor not the answer to everything.

With logical thinking applied, yes.

Not all children with EHCP's were welcomed in school, if they required 1:1 support forgot it. Our child did the entirety of lockdown at home with us and we did all ourselves as school failed to even adapt the curriculum. Was actually better for us, but for others not able to cope at home this was unforgivable on the part of some schools.

I am sorry I don't believe this to be accurate or true, but equally we had no idea at the time either. That is kind of the point, though I detest Boris with every fibre of my being, I do think it was the best decision with all we knew at the time. We will never know how many would have died without lockdown, but in the face of all the unravelling "data" it was clearly the only option for people to take it seriously. It was one method of managing behaviours, I feel I we were to have another pandemic of any kind, perhaps people would behave more wisely in the early stages to avoid lockdown again.

I remember in Wales non essential things in supermarkets were coned off. Including kettles! Kettles are essential! When they break, you can’t have a cup of tea or coffee which is essential!

I don't live in Wales but I think I remember that, what was the rational?
It seems a bit petty to lock stuff away because they are deemed by some as non essential

There is very little evidence that more people would have died if we hadn't locked down. Across the world there is virtually no correlation between death rate and severity of lockdowns.

It's the wrong measure. You'd have to look for a correlation between mortality rate and degree of physical connectedness in society with measures in place. A more physically connected society requires greater lockdown measures to achieve the same benefit as a less connected society. You'd also have to account for cultural differences in altruistic compliance with measures of lesser or greater severity. It's why you can't directly compare the UK with Sweden, or anywhere else, by just looking at crude metrics.

If we had another pandemic the UK would almost certainly now need much stricter enforcement of public health measures because we now have radicalised groups rejecting the basis of science and science-based public health. Voluntary altruistic compliance with light-touch measures would be completely undone by these selfish and ignorant minorities.

if we had another pandemic the UK would almost certainly now need much stricter enforcement of public health measures because we now have radicalised groups rejecting the basis of science and science-based public health. Voluntary altruistic compliance with light-touch measures would be completely undone by these selfish and ignorant minorities.
And whose fault is that? The government for the heavy handedness, the members of the public who became self appointed Inquisorital Squad..."I'm reporting my neighbour who let her 5 yo in the garden TWICE today" "My neighbours bought milk and biscuits today, they're not essential... who do I call, police or MI5?"..

"I don't live in Wales but I think I remember that, what was the rational?"

If I recall correctly it was due to prevent unfairness/ competition. E.g electrical stores for example being forced to close as these items were deemed non essential so supermarkets being unable to sell those same items either

Once flights/holidays were back in summer 2020 and the pubs opened schools should have been.

The whole lockdown thing was over the day of the VE day conga lines.