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As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

reuters.com

71–80 of 553 posts

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#71

Anyone else find it strange that a country that has often fallen in line with "think of the children" arguments for hypothetical dangers appears to be completely uncaring about very real dangers of social isolation that are impacting our youth?

They were balancing it against what they saw in Italy: allowing the virus to get out of hand and overwhelm the hospital system and your death rate from covid jumps into the double digits. Kids would be pretty depressed being surrounded by a 8 digit body count in the US too.

Covid barely spreads through children. It spreads through travel and large gathering of adults.

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#72

Anyone else find it strange that a country that has often fallen in line with "think of the children" arguments for hypothetical dangers appears to be completely uncaring about very real dangers of social isolation that are impacting our youth?

It’s not the whole country. It’s largely the propagation of fear from the media and the teachers unions who don’t want to work (and the politicians trying to push large stimulus checks to the unions). For instance, Florida never shut down schools. In contrast, Chicago and SF teachers unions are/were pushing to keep schools closed. The “science” (note: much of it is not peer reviewed) thus far indicates it’s safe to o…

Your comment will be flagged and removed. You cannot be this open minded and critical of the lockdown religion.

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#73
post #65

Teachers' unions saw an opening and they took it. The fact that private schools in SF have been open for so long safely with no public schools open should tell you all you need to know. I, for one, love it. When you're on this side of the wealth spectrum, an expanding gap lifts your ship and sinks the other guy. And I'm all for the pursuit of sheer greed. If other people want to hamstring themselves for whatever reas…

Wow. Maybe you didn’t intend this (or maybe you’re just trolling??) but this comment comes across as one of the most callous and tone-deaf things I have ever read. Like, Ebenezer Scrooge level. Families who can’t afford to send their children to private schools are clearly negatively affected by this through basically no fault of their own, and I cannot understand why you choose applaud that. Maybe consider deleting…

Okay, I can see how it comes across. Personally, I want America to succeed and I think closing schools is bad for that because we're damaging people who are far more precious than us (the next generation).

But people get what people vote for. They could smash the teaching unions if they want to. But they could choose not to.

So if you choose a path I warned you about and it hurts you, I'm happy to find some positivity in that by insulating myself from you and prospering by not walking off a bridge like you.

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#74
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were balancing it against what they saw in Italy: allowing the virus to get out of hand and overwhelm the hospital system and your death rate from covid jumps into the double digits. Kids would be pretty depressed being surrounded by a 8 digit body count in the US too.

Do you have any proof that that would have increased depression rates in children relative to what we see today? And an 8 digit body count would be impossible in the US for a disease with a >99% survival rate. So quit the hyperbole.

[deleted]

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were balancing it against what they saw in Italy: allowing the virus to get out of hand and overwhelm the hospital system and your death rate from covid jumps into the double digits. Kids would be pretty depressed being surrounded by a 8 digit body count in the US too.

> Kids would be pretty depressed being surrounded by a 8 digit body count in the US too. Let’s make sure they’re depressed when their brains are irreversibly stunted from missing the crucial social interactions necessary for development. Also, let’s pile on the misery with a generation of kids with stunted literacy. Good luck teaching reading with a freaking mask on. It’s indefensible.

The technocratic left hates you and your children. It's that simple. This website shadow bans comments critical of lockdown. The technocrats want to replace you with foreign workers that they can exploit and they want your kids poor and desperately stuck working in the gig economy.

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#76
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were balancing it against what they saw in Italy: allowing the virus to get out of hand and overwhelm the hospital system and your death rate from covid jumps into the double digits. Kids would be pretty depressed being surrounded by a 8 digit body count in the US too.

Covid barely spreads through children. It spreads through travel and large gathering of adults.

[deleted]

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#77
What would it have been like if the schools had not been closed? If millions had been infected in a short time and the hospitals had been overloaded so that in addition to the deaths from Corona, the deaths from lack of capacity would have been added? How traumatic would that be for the children? Are there any studies on this from New York or Italy? Can the consequences of the lockdown be so cleanly separated from the consequences of the pandemic? Couldn't it also be that the lockdown simply makes people more aware of the threat of the pandemic because it has a tangible impact on their personal lives? It's nice that schools that follow the hygiene rules have fewer COVID cases, but what percentage of schools have the space for it and actually implement it? Why else have studies shown that school closures are one of the top 3 measures against the spread of infection, after closing down restaurants and limiting contacts to 5 people?

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#78
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were balancing it against what they saw in Italy: allowing the virus to get out of hand and overwhelm the hospital system and your death rate from covid jumps into the double digits. Kids would be pretty depressed being surrounded by a 8 digit body count in the US too.

Covid barely spreads through children. It spreads through travel and large gathering of adults.

There's pretty much no evidence for that. Kids are asymptomatic and the virus is so out of control that it's difficult to track down the graph of infections from kids is all.

Additionally teachers and school staff tilt pretty heavily to high risk groups. Watching so many of the adults die in their life would absolutely give kids depression too.

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#79

Anyone else find it strange that a country that has often fallen in line with "think of the children" arguments for hypothetical dangers appears to be completely uncaring about very real dangers of social isolation that are impacting our youth?

They were balancing it against what they saw in Italy: allowing the virus to get out of hand and overwhelm the hospital system and your death rate from covid jumps into the double digits. Kids would be pretty depressed being surrounded by a 8 digit body count in the US too.

Kids would be pretty depressed being surrounded by a 8 digit body count in the US too.

Kudos for expressing an unpopular opinion.

I'll express another one: I think the whole thing about "ZOMG! Suicide rates through the roof!!!elevelty!1!" is blown out of proportion, largely thanks to pseudo-news web sites trying to grab clicks on the internet.

The school district where I live put out a press release lamenting an 18% increase in student suicide in 2020. Reading to the end, you find out that the actual numeric increase was something like 2. Two dead kids isn't good in any way. But when the number of suicides reaches a meaningful fraction of the number of COVID deaths, then I'll take it seriously.

Having to stay home for a year is nothing — absolutely nothing — compared with what children had to deal with during previous social upheavals (world wars, and the like).

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#80
post #31
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a second-order effect of not prioritizing school reopenings. Lockdowns aren't all-or-nothing.

Right. We should have closed restaurants, bars, whatever so we could keep schools open.

So, for context, France tried that. Badly, like the rest of our handling of Covid, but we did close restaurants, bars, and everything else, keeping schools open. Not really for the well being of the children, but rather that their parents could not work if they had to handle children.

Depressions are still through the roof, grades are low.

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