Interesting article on govt inaction, kids and 4th wave

[beentoldcomputersaysno]

bylinetimes.com/2021/08/18/the-fourth-wave-children-paying-the-price-of-government-inaction-and-covid-19-lobbying/

Good article. Thanks for posting.

Agree. Good read. What's happening in England re children/school, is beyond my comprehension.

That's a good article, but a bit crushing to read.

It is awful what the government are (not) doing.

There will be so many unwell children potentially. The country is in a very strange place.

I think blithely suggesting ‘universal masking’ and ‘distancing’ in schools are sensible measures that are way better than any child ever getting ill may be a bit simplistic.

Reputable source.. hmmm?

Nope, the children and teens need their lives back, we have to ride this out now.

we have to ride this out now the article isn't about what we need to do, it is about what we are doing to our children, in terms of exposing them to higher risk of ill health than we need to.

Yup, our children have been treated criminally.

@middleager

Yup, our children have been treated criminally.

...are still being treated criminally.

Our government have made it crystal clear since the very beginning that they are willing to harm, disable, and kill our children for the sake of the economy.

‘Distancing’ in schools means fewer kids can be in school at any one time. So all kids, save for those whose parents can either sit and tutor children during a school day themselves or pay for a tutor to do it, get a poorer standard of education. Those harms disproportionately fall on children already disadvantaged by socioeconomic status.

So you need to balance that harm up against the harm to children of covid, which thankfully, is relatively low and in line with the risk that a lot of common diseases like RSV pose to children.

And that’s just for the educational impact of ‘distancing’, not even factoring in all the other harms to children and their educations and their futures that come with severely limiting their right to be in schools and to get an education.

I’m lost as to why open schools is now being portrayed as some fiendish Tory capitalist plot, and the left-wing response should be to limit the access children get to schools and to education. Feels increasingly like outlets like Byline Times ass left-wing ideology as “opposite of whatever the Tories are currently doing” with no wider value or meaning beyond that.

I think trying to infect as many children as possible, which in essence is the current strategy is dangerous. Most people accept there is a risk with schools being open, think most want schools open and the rest boils down to whether we want to mitigate any of that risk or not.

And mitigations like “universal masking and distancing”, as suggested in the article, have really big trade-offs for children and their education and wellbeing - none of which are addressed at all in the article.

Nanny and John that's a very bold statement.

You scare people with that attitude. That's not what they set out to do at all.

We cannot live like this forever.

The children need normality back in their lives. For some, lockdown and being out of school has been truly devastating for them.

Nanny and John, you mention disabling children, but you see on the other hand lots didn't get the treatment or care they needed during lockdown. Things get spotted at school by teachers and staff. That's so important.

CNN are reporting a similar story today. There needs to be a balance between causing lots of unnecessary harm to children through no mitigations and the harm done to children not in school. Vulnerable people on both sides need to be accounted for. The current situation will make it untenable for lots of kids to attend. I think most people want schools open, but it seems sensible to live with covid by addressing some of the risks, rather than ignoring them or accepting harms to kids as collateral damage. The government could have addressed e.g. ventilation in schools - that's not invasive and other countries have done it.

I agree with @NannyAndJohn
We have absolutely no idea what the long term health effects of this virus are. It's a dereliction of duty to continue to allow children to catch it

An anecdote, yes, but my husband caught swine flu in 2009. Previously he had been an healthy adult. Ever since, he has suffered with severe asthma, lung problems meaning he's more susceptible to winter coughs, colds, flu, and other viruses that attack the lungs etc. The mild damp problem in our previous house (which we have now thankfully managed to leave) had him so ill he couldn't work for two years. No-one else was affected at all. That's from one novel virus, twelve years ago.

Sorry to hear that @CovidPassQuestion.

I do think if there is someone with covid in your house you should all isolate even if double vaccinated. Today one of my hobby teachers cancelled her class because her daughter has Covid (a teenager) I asked if there was anything I could leave outside the house - she said no she was going to the chemist later. I just thought to myself she really should isolate.

I think for many of us the risk of our kids not getting an education is higher than covid. As with many covid measures though there has been no recognition of the damage done and it’s all been “kids lack resilience” “parents should educate their own kids” although that actually hasn’t been the system we used in this country since state education was introduced in 1870.

Ultimately a kids like mine (none vulnerable no key worker parents) will be back of the pack in relation to socially distanced schooling since to get more space you need less kids in the classroom and priority would undoubtedly be given to children based on parental profession. Then of course he sits at hone watching educational tv since any suggestion live teaching should be the norm for the kids people want to exclude from the classroom is supposed by the teaching profession.

And then we have teachers themselves saying exams need changing next years because “kids have missed too much schooling” and we still have people calling for more disruption. It just isn’t a sacrifice worth it for many parents and those calling for it need to provide a better plan for ensuring the next Sarah Gilbert isn’t sat at home under their plan watching bbc bite size videos rather than getting anything that may look by an education because otherwise the long term impacts for our economy could be huge!

Oh and to be clear the cdc has said all children in the us should return full time to the classroom next year I guess because they too think schooling is important however much pro lockdowners keep denying it!

Where does it say to close schools? I must have missed that. My reading of it was that we need more than vaccines.

@CovidPassQuestion

I agree with *@NannyAndJohn* We have absolutely no idea what the long term health effects of this virus are. It's a dereliction of duty to continue to allow children to catch it

An anecdote, yes, but my husband caught swine flu in 2009. Previously he had been an healthy adult. Ever since, he has suffered with severe asthma, lung problems meaning he's more susceptible to winter coughs, colds, flu, and other viruses that attack the lungs etc. The mild damp problem in our previous house (which we have now thankfully managed to leave) had him so ill he couldn't work for two years. No-one else was affected at all. That's from one novel virus, twelve years ago.

I'm sorry to hear about your husband but the problem is it's unknowns either way. People already say delta is worse for kids than alpha. So part of me thinks there is a risk in my young children NOT catching Covid now, as what if soon there is a gamma variant which is much worse for kids but those who had delta are protected. We'd then be wishing we let it spread. As a parent of young children, in many ways I would rather they were exposed now when younger than dodge it for 5 years and then suffer more from it as they will be older and it seems to get worse with age. All of these decisions are unknowns but the known is that children need an education & a childhood.

It says “socially distanced schooling” same as those who say “smaller classes” it’s code for less kids in the class. Ours did social distance schooling after return from lockdown one (June 2020) it meant they could fit 10 kids in classrooms meant for 30 so it shuts schools for those 20 kids but I think very positively talked about by the parents of the ten who tend to qualify for the place as key workers less shows by parents like me whose kids will never get in without a full quota.

Here in Scotland socially distanced schooling/smaller classes was the plan for the 2020/1 school year. So we got to see what that would actually look like, before the government U-turned on it.

My primary-age DC would have been getting 2 days per week in a classroom, the rest working at home from ‘worksheet packs’. This is better than some; in other areas, kids would have been getting 3 days a month in school. And lots of people with different-aged kids ended up with their children’s assigned days being on different days, meaning there would always be at least one child at home.

That’s what ‘distancing’ looks like.

So like hybrid?

Yeah, some days in school, other days out. No way to have smaller socially distanced classes and have everyone in school at the same time.