Anti-lockdowners pretending to care about kids again

[noblegiraffe]

So it's all over the news about how nearly 400,000 kids are having to isolate because of covid cases in schools. Complaints about how disruptive to education it is and to the mental health of the children involved. This disruptive isolation must end as soon as possible.

Contrast to last November when nearly a million kids were self-isolating in a week. Do you remember the headlines, discussions and outrage about that?

No, of course you don't. Because back then, the solution to so many kids isolating was to put more mitigation measures in schools and attempt to stop so many kids catching it.

Now they can argue that it doesn't matter if all kids catch it, they're all over the 'terrible' isolation figures which are less than half of those last year.

I'm SO done with people only caring about kids and education when they think that they can use them for their own benefit.

If these loud voices could be used to talk about things like the cuts to pupil premium, the pitiful covid catch-up funding, the critical shortage of teachers, the unsafe state of schools, the massive waiting lists for CAMHS and SEN services, then maybe I'd believe them when they claim to care about children.

"They campaigned to reopen playgrounds last spring, and for them to stay open over the second wave in winter. They were horrified at the effects closing schools last year had on vulnerable kids, poor kids, those in inadequate housing etc. They were rightly worried that school lockdowns would massively exacerbate inequality, and severely impact the life chances of so many children etc etc"

Completely agree.

I think that’s right @PromisingMiddleagedWoman

For me lockdown has always been about the impact on children. Not even my children who were kind of ok with online learning. But for the millions who didn’t even have access to online learning. So the disadvantaged become even more so.

I should love a lockdown. I work from home. I can d @o my job online. I have a decent garden. But I don’t think like that. I worry for all those children that don’t have a garden and for those where school was a bit of a safe haven.

“I really believe that this is the worst thing we have ever done to children as a group in the UK in recent history and think it is completely unjustified and a breach of their rights to an education and not to be imprisoned.”

@Chessie678 I 100% agree with this. It will be interesting when we have the benefit of hindsight in 10 or 20 years, and the long term effects of lockdown and school closures come to be fully known. I suspect history won’t judge the rabid pro-lockdown contingent quite as highly as they’d like to think they’ll be judged.

I think OP just wants a little rant

The rants are practically daily, plus hijacking any other thread about schools.

@noblegiraffe I see a few of the sneery ones have shown up
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@Delatron hi 🙋🏻‍♀️

History will judge what we did to children throughout this pandemic as utterly unforgivable.
It’s awful to be part of it. How will our children explain it to their children?
Because you can’t really.

Closing playgrounds was horrible.

I think it will happen before then. In 10 to 15 years time when employers start complaining about the lack of education and knowledge their potential employees have.

@cornflowersandpoppies

Closing playgrounds was horrible.

Especially given transmission was known to be virtually impossible

@Delatron Absolutely. We (ie all adults) owe children and young people such a massive debt after everything we’ve put them through this past year and a bit.

Re school weigh ins. From another thread.. "My friend refused consent. When asked why she said "the government doesn't get to take away all of her sport and group activities for a year and then get to turn around and call her fat"

@Thewiseoneincognito your contribution to this thread has been really excellent. Strong arguments there I think we can all agree.

@Thewiseoneincognito

‘The sneery ones’ being anyone who disagrees with you I guess?

I agree @PromisingMiddleagedWoman
They’ve sacrificed so much and I don’t think we’ll know the true effects for years to come.

For those gleefully claiming that suicides haven’t gone up. Suicide is a last resort. You don’t go from being ok to suicidal in a few months. You can suffer effects of trauma for years. I don’t think we can judge the mental fallout yet.

I do know mental health referrals for kids are through the roof at the moment.

@MercyBooth That’s a really important point, and shows how short term panicking took over from any sensible longer term thinking.

For example there are going to be some kids whose lack of exercise over the past year will lead to obesity later in life. A proportion of these will develop diabetes. A few will become seriously ill, a small number will die. But because that is years down the line, way beyond the lifespan of the current government, it doesn’t factor into the decisions made by policy makers over the last year.

Exactly @Teateaandmoretea and thank you.

I think when certain posters can’t think of an argument they resort to name calling. It makes them look really good..

@PromisingMiddleagedWoman Totally agree. Many live in cramped inadequate housing/flats and they shut the bloody public parks.

I do know mental health referrals for kids are through the roof at the moment.

Did you fill out the Young Minds Campaign petition upthread? They want more funding for mental health hubs. V easy to generate an email to your MP.

The rants are practically daily

People do like lying about me.

I’ll fill it in yes. I’ve already written to my MP about the mental health impacts of these repeated isolations. These are positive things we can do.

The thing is, the OP knows what she’s talking about. She made some very sensible suggestions on how to keep schools ‘safe’ and was shot down. She warned you that your children would be constantly isolating if measures were not put into place and was, again, shot down. If you’d listened to her last April, you could have gained hours more teaching time for your children and not experienced all these ‘bubbles’ bursting. Perhaps you could actually listen to her this time? Learn from someone who has actually experienced life in post-Covid schools and ignore the anti-muzzle brigade. We would have avoided many of these isolation periods If we hadn’t ditched mask wearing in schools just as the Delta variant took hold and yet we STILL listen to groups like U4T who fought for exactly that. Fight for the right things, people.

Did you fill out the Young Minds Campaign petition upthread? They want more funding for mental health hubs. V easy to generate an email to your MP.

That’s not really going to help. They need their lives back.

The point of the uproar about isolations is the absolute unnecessary nature of it. We know kids are not at risk so it doesn’t matter if they get it, yet here they are still taking the brunt of it. If you truly put children first, you’d also be outraged and be calling for all restrictions on children to be lifted immediately.

@noblegiraffe it certainly feels that way. Tbf though I don’t go on mumsnet daily so can’t really substantiate it that accurately. There are a lot of them though for sure.

@BustopherPonsonbyJones

Do you even understand how covid is transmitted? Clearly not, if you still believe masks make any difference

@BustopherPonsonbyJones you have zero evidence that any of that is true. It may or may not be.

Noble is a teacher, not an expert in disease control.