Vulnerable children locked up in flats, deep recession, mental health eroded a future generation screwed

[Borkins]

I hope it flattens that curve. I hope it saves lives. Because huge sacrifices are being made.

There are meant to be school places for all children who won't be safe at home ( for whatever reason) but there aren't enough spaces for those children. The lockdown may be the only way but there will be consequences.

Yes OP this worries me too. When this is all over the country, the world is going to have an even bigger mental health crisis than it did before. Over the past week I have had times when I have struggled and I regard myself as quite a mentally stable person, normally. I worry about the anxiety levels that some people must be facing, and the repercussions for some children that will be spending all their time with parents that are struggling. This is going to be a long storm for many.

@LittleLittleLittle
Day 2 of official lockdown. Or am I supposed to have been cowering in my house for weeks like all MN’s competitive quarantiners?

Don’t be so dramatic.

This. Obviously there are going to be some sad cases, but hardly a future generation screwed!!! People have lived through worse things.

How did a site full of intelligent women (mainly) become so one dimensional with no room for any sort of critical thinking or nuance.

This virus may be a catastrophe for the over 70 and those with particular underlying health issues but do not for one second underestimate the dire situation that the actions to protect this group are having on others.
Dysfunctional families already struggling with day to day life are falling apart under this pressure, domestic violence incidence will go through the roof and to the poster who wrote ‘vulnerable children have a place in school’ .....really??? Are you that naive?! Schools can offer the place; we have no powers to make the child turn up. Almost every one of our child protection case children has not turned up. One child has already gone into temporary foster care as the father put mother in hospitalafter a drunken row. It is NOT like the ‘summer holidays’ as there are no social workers to do the thousands of home visits needed because we shut schools. No police available to support any cry for help. No GO seeing patients, no rehab services, no community groups. How can it be anything other than disastrous for these children. Children already die every week at the hands of their parents - you think that won’t increase??

Parents of children with SEND needs especially those with complex medical needs too are having to weigh up losing their respite and often their only support of their child being in school against the risk of sending them there if their condition makes then higher risk. Just look at the SEND board on here .... many are already at mental breaking point.
And a few months ago, MN was awash with people scoffing at the Labour manifesto and shrieking about magic money trees. Corbyn’s most ludicrous schemes didn’t add up to a quarter of the cost of this ..... generations of children and young adults who have already grown up through 10 years of austerity are going to be paying this back for decades.....or do you think there is actually a magic money tree? The economic shock is already worse than the financial meltdown of 2008. Markets are already lower ....predicted borrowing already at record unthinkable levels.

I don’t know what the answer is; I really don’t but anyone who just puts their fingers in their ears and chants ‘stay at home, save lives’ needs to start bloody thinking. We are sacrificing generations of younger people to hopefully ‘save’ some of the oldest generations ...maybe that’s a price worth paying ....I don’t know .... but that’s the reality.

@ADreamOfGood

How old are you @Borkins?

It's very easy to say that if you're in your thirties or forties. When it comes down to it almost everyone is not ready to go yet.

Schools aren't closed so that 86yos can be saved. They're closed so that the number requiring treatment doesn't surpass the amount of equipment and number of HCP we have.**

With all due respect, regarding your last paragraph, that’s exactly the reason schools are closed, to help save the 86 year old and many many more.

OP is right though in the sense it’s to expected where to die at 40 is tragic. Not so at 86. Not to say I’d be happy to die then mind however I would appreciate that if lived a long life and I couldn’t say that at 40

@Effic

Your post is superb 👏👏👏

Potkettle- the over 70s are in isolation to save them. If they're locked up in their houses they can't catch it. (I know there's a risk when people drop food to them.) Schools are closed to cut down on transmission by children to their parents.
The sheer numbers this virus could affect are so vast those ventilators will all be occupied even if no over 75s are treated.

I have a friend who is a matron and her wards are elderly wards. She is of the opinion that we keep people alive too long generally.
They have lost some patients to cv. She says it could have been flu. A cold. A chest infection. Norovirus. It just happened to be cv. Her belief is that there are some outliers - as in the same way healthy people die of anything - but that is is mainly people who would probably have died in the next year or so.
I know that sounds callous - my own parents fall in this group potentially. I am in a vulnerable group too.
And yet i still believe the cost of what we are doing is so great that it may well be worse than the virus. I don’t know. It’s bad either way I suppose but I think that lockdown merely delays and doesn’t change the virus outcome. What it does mean is poverty, poor mental health, dv and children being out of education for months on end. Plus other things now going untreated.

@Stupidanduseless

A doctor friend said something very similar a while ago.
An extra 500,000 deaths in the space of six weeks is unimaginable though.

@ADreamOfGood

Perhaps you’re right, but the general consensus is that most of us will get it and not need hospital treatment. I know some fit young healthy people will but that’s not the norm.

I totally agree. There are plenty of times in society where we could remove one set of people's rights to improve outcomes for others, but we don't. This really is going to mean the most vulnerable in our society suffer the most.

Another consequence from this might be intergenerational resentment. Society already seems massively weighted in favour of the old and against the young. I say this as an older person.

Parents need to step up for their children. Teachers are expected to babysit, feed, change, clean kids, but parents moan when they have to do it for a few weeks.

Of course it is an issue

But no easy solution

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/21/coronavirus-domestic-violence-week-in-patriarchy

Effic I do get your post and the reasoning, but the elderly are the reason why we were still having a lovely life until a few weeks ago!! I definitely would not want to abandon now!

@Stupidanduseless

I agree and can see what your friend means. There’s another thread on here at the moment about whether or not the benefits of saving these elderly souls is detrimental to the younger generation. Interesting thread

I don't think it's dramatic. Children that are currently considered vulnerable are meant to have school places. But the authorities don't even know about every vulnerable child. If I'd been stuck in a house 24/7 for weeks with my parents as a child I can truthfully say I'd have taken the only option out.

We also need to remember all the dc with normal, loving families that will soon be vulnerable, at least in my eyes. Dc that will lose loved ones either early or when it was avoidable because vital treatment wasn't available for other conditions & community support wasn't available. Dc that will face homelessness, and then continue in the cycle as adults because the economy was fucked and there aren't any jobs. Dc with mh problems and sn that will struggle far more shut away than others.

It's mainly those of us at least risk from coronavirus that will be paying the economic price to keep an older, statistically speaking wealthier generation safe. And our youth, already fucked as far as housing, job security and pensions go will pay the highest price for the future economic fallout we already face.

It won't be a popular opinion I'm sure, but if we're going to demand the younger generation sacrifice their homes and livelihood, and in some cases mental health to keep the older generation safe, pensioner wealth should be used to at least level it.

I think we are doing the right thing (for now) but seriously this cannot go on for months on end. People will be too scared to go to the doctors or A&E for other reasons that could be serious because of the fear of catching the virus or the fear of being turned away for wasting their time. And yes, women trapped in abusive relationships and vulnerable children who are now unable to see their teachers and friends. Many people are in shit situations and no one knows, I feel so sad for them because now they have no daily escape. It's also those kids whose parents are still having to work from home, younger kids aren't able to just sit at a table and work... they will be feeling very confused right now.

www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/18334287.police-get-domestic-violence-calls-coronavirus-lockdown/

Also the social media pitch forkers and their posts about staying in to save lives otherwise it could be your sick child taken away in a van and dying alone in hospital as mummy and daddy won't be able to be with them. Wtf? Who has the right to post such shit.

@Grandmi

If you’re referring to their war contributions sadly there’ll only be a handful of them left in the Britain. I think the repercussions of this will be more detrimental than first realised, as illustrated in Effics post

pensioner wealth should be used to at least level it.

I agree but it'll never happen. People don't even want to pay back towards society (inheritance tax) after they're dead.

@TrainspottingWelsh

Another great post 👏

pensioner wealth should be used to at least level it.

I agree but it'll never happen. People don't even want to pay back towards society (inheritance tax) after they're dead.

Yeah, we had an election recently, and the Venezuela-lover lost in a landslide. What a shame