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.

No. I always completely disagreed with lockdowns.

Support the vulnerable but don't harm the majority

No.

Education wise, no. For the overall impact on children's mental health, not being able to socialize, see friends, do sports, not be locked in a house basically with their phones, absolutely.

lockdowns were absolutely fucking mental.

Thanks for that, speaking as one of the vulnerable. There seems to be an idea that we can either shut ourselves away or go to the wall.
Lots of people seem to think that schools should have re-opened but I don't think they have thought it through at all.
Some children were completely unaffected by Covid in the same way some people don't catch colds. Others were very, very ill. So, a child goes to school, gets Covid. Child is fine, has a sniffle but mum has asthma or grandad lives with them or someone is on chemo or whatever. Covid spreads like the branches on a tree, it doesn't stay with the child who will probably be fine.
Then the teacher gets Covid. So they are off, who teaches then? What happens to the teacher's family? So there's a supply teacher but they are vulnerable so can't come to school. The Head's off with long Covid. Another teacher is pregnant so can't come in, and so on.

I'm so sorry the children had such a difficult time but honestly-what would your plan have been?

For a virus they would get vaccinated.
There wasn't a vaccine for Covid at the time though.

Do you have data? I thought the Swedish laissez faire approach had been disproven but I might be wrong.

It's easy to give an answer in retrospect isn't it but at the time there was so little known about the illness that the only safe thing to do was to close. If more info was known about it then different decisions would have been made but finding out about it took time understandably.

103k children ?! That's seems absolutely insane.

Could you quote your source for that 130 000 figure please.

The public debt, huge rise in worklessness and damage to children's education has been catastrophic for the nation.

The consequences will be felt for decades and we're heading for massive cuts to the public sector, healthcare, pensions and benefits.

The vast majority of the elderly people, with multiple health conditions, that were 'saved' by lockdowns are probably already dead.

What a complete disaster.

Personally, I don’t think the cost is too high. Hindsight is always 20/20, but if different decisions had been made we’d be arguing the cost of something else. Children are our future, but enough will bounce back to keep the future stable. Yeah, that sounds mean but saying ‘let’s not do lockdown and just accept that people will die’ is also rather mean so there’s no winning. Everyone is an expert when we don’t have to make decisions!

I think it’s interesting to contrast the “protect the vulnerable” (who were predominantly elderly) approach with the Japanese approach to Fukushima where older volunteers did clean up because they’d lived more of their lives and had less to lose, the nobility of which reduced me to a blubbering mess.

To add to your point @HornungTheHelpful, the conflation of vulnerable to covid and vulnerable per se was a big part of this approach. It's happening in this thread too

But the vulnerable were never one group with the same interests, and lockdown threw some of them under the bus. We had no choice but to prioritise the welfare of some vulnerable people over others, but that is very much not the way it was portrayed at the time.

Pubs opened July 4th in England. Some year groups were allowed to return at the beginning of June but most weren't. It felt wrong at the time but looking back it was absolutely disgraceful. A lot of children were quite scared and anxious about lockdown and I think getting them back in the classroom and socialising with peers would have been very helpful. I am saying this as someone who was working in schools at the time and saw the changes in the dcs who did return.

So how come me and my family and plenty others were fine and we've all not took one single jab? Oh and no one ever really says they hsve covid now. Flu has made a comeback and them wanting kids at school to have flu jabs but in 2020 no one had the flu or a cold everything was covid

No in my view it was a decision that was unscientific and utterly wrong.
However, I would not be anywhere near so angry about it if the pros and cons could have been sensibly discussed at the time, rather than anyone who showed concern being called a granny killer, or a fascist, or a conspiracy theorist. It was an egregious example of the lack of intelligence and nuance in public debate.

I still maintain the impact (and I agree with most of what @ThisOldThang you say about consequences) could have been much less, with timely action. Hence my view that with it schools could have opened in June and July, even one or two days a week for each child. Windows open, smaller classes, all the separate entrances put into place, some lessons outdoors, for example.

Me too.

There's no vaccine for the common cold either. I think that was the PPs point. The kids for whom a cold is a potential problem are in the same unfortunate position they always have been. Even during restrictions, schools might insist DC with snotty noses and sore throats got tested, but there were plenty of other viruses still circulating and such kids often tested negative for covid.

Reasoned debate being difficult came partly because of the legacy of the Brexit debate and having the worst Prime Minister in history in office at the time.

Are you for real? Lockdown damaged our children immeasurably. There were no benefits for any children and anyone who tells you otherwise is deluded or has an agenda.

The most important things for childhood development up are friends, family, exercise, the outdoors / fresh air / nature, school and routine. Lockdown took these away.

Yes. I'm alive and their grandparents are alive. As are all of their teachers. They had various medical treatment in lockdown when needed as there were just enough free NHS staff to keep other departments ticking over.

Would have been a very different story if covid had been allowed to get even more out of control.

I don’t know how to vote in your poll but I absolutely think lockdowns were not worth it. We could have found ways to protect those vulnerable without taking so much from children.

https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/pupil-absence-in-schools-in-england
There is data here, the 130k refers the numbers of "severely absent" children. Whilst it doesn't mean 130k kids have literally disappeared, it does mean that the number of kids missing lots/not attending school has more than doubled since 2019.

In Sweden, schools for primary school children didnt close at all. In Switzerland, they only closed for six weeks at the start of the pandemic. We didn't have to do this to our children.

"Once the vaccines were available and taken up, it made the virus less dangerous to most, and no lockdowns should ever have taken place after that point. I think that is where we went wrong."

Not sure what you are on about. Vaccines were only available around Xmas. This was after the 2nd lockdown. Shortly after the rollout started for the elderly but this coincided with the alpha wave so there was a final lockdown because so few had been jabbed.

The government decided that education was not a priority and teachers and school staff not a priority for jabs and attendance and absence for staff and pupils was a shitshow from the sept reopening onwards

Lots of teachers I know all got COVID pre jab and have long term side effects. In my case my lungs were damaged to such an extent that I am on COPD medication and am now considered vulnerable.

People forget that pubs opening was a government decision and was subject to limits on numbers etc. schools were able to implement social distancing for key workers kids but it was impossible once all kids were back.

The government could have spent time installing air filters in classrooms such as those they installed in the house of commons. Instead they lied and said kids don't spread COVID.

Figures show that the decrease in attendance is primarily due to more frequent sickness. You can see it right now with the latest variant. Multiple classes with 5 or 6 kids off sick at the same time.