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

reuters.com

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

#111

Post by monocasa »

_Gyan_ wrote: post #91
monocasa wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there seems to be a growing consensus that K-8 schools aren't significant spreaders There's almost no evidence for that. It boils down to the virus is absolutely out of control here, and kids are way more likely to be asymptomatic, meaning that it's way harder to nail down that a child to adult transmission occurred outside of the household.

From Association between living with children and outcomes from covid-19: OpenSAFELY cohort study of 12 million adults in England https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n628 " Conclusions In contrast to wave 1, evidence existed of increased risk of reported SARS-CoV-2 infection and covid-19 outcomes among adults living with children during wave 2. However, this did not translate into a materially increased risk of covid…

From the UK, where they've closed schools pretty much universally across the country.

Yes, the slight immunobump from being exposed to pretty much every year's influenza outweighs being next to one of the most socially isolated groups.

That doesn't mean that if they repoened you wouldn't see the opposite.

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

#113

Post by dillondoyle »

germinalphrase wrote: post #13
cassalian wrote: post #9

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?

The US federal gov’t spends about 3x as much on those over the age of 65 than it does those under the age of 18 (including transfer payments to parents of those children)[0]. Personally, I think that should be flipped, but kid’s don’t vote. [0] https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/23x...

I LOVE that West Wing episode. A group of kids get shuffled around the white house, not important, ignored. The leader of his school group gets to ask a question to President Bartlet after impressing a staffer.

"Do you think the budget deficit is especially unfair to younger Americans?" -> " a follow up, do you think we'd have such a large deficit if children were allowed to vote?" Such a good use of debate.

I think it's worth debating whether to give teens the right to vote. In my mind at least to 13 and up - but it's capricious / hard to draw the line or come up with 'tests' that aren't flat out repeating our disgusting past treatment of Black Americans.

The West Wing episode [clip below] spells out some of the argument:

I miss the West Wing universe. Would be awesome to see a reboot optimistic show about getting things accomplished, showing a vision for how it's possible to tackle climate change and our other ailments. But move the show past today's progress (it does not treat women well/give them voice, stance on gay marriage etc).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSDxg-bDw1A

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

#114

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

happytoexplain wrote: post #23
cassalian wrote: post #9

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?

I don't understand - are you implying that the act of deciding to have a long lockdown necessitates that the decision makers do not care about children, or are there specifics you are leaving unsaid?

> are you implying that the act of deciding to have a long lockdown necessitates that the decision makers do not care about children

I do get this impression from watching interviews with some of the public-health experts advising governments. As an academic, I can recognize my fellow academics who are obsessively focused on their own field and passionate about it, but they might not realize that people outside the field don’t have the same investment. For some of these public-health experts, reducing transmission to zero and avoiding every potential death is paramount, and the societal and political consequences are only at the margins of their consciousness at best. However, the general public is broadly ready to accept some level of morbidity and disease spread in order to live with fewer restrictions, there is only a debate about how much.

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

#115

Post by lisper »

afavour wrote: post #96
lisper wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not quite a lie, just a very narrow scope. The implied context of "think of the children" is usually something like, "Think of how horrible it would be if the children were exposed to temptations like sex and drugs." Other aspects of children's welfare don't figure as highly in the calculus of those who espouse this slogan.

Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking with "surface level truth". I think if you asked the majority of the US population if they cared about children they'd say yes and I don't think they would be lying. But there's an ignorance of the bigger picture.

I think that's still not the right way to look at it. Calling it "ignorance" is unnecessarily pejorative. It's a difference in quality metric. Some people attach a lot of value to avoiding (what they believe to be) moral transgressions because they believe it imperils their soul in the afterlife or something like that. You may vehemently disagree with this goal, but if you accept that as a goal then this narrowly focused "think of the children" actually makes logical sense because the afterlife lasts a lot longer than this one does.

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

#116

Post by Griffinsauce »

cassalian wrote: post #9

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?

"think of the children" is only about keeping them free from sin, not actually educating them because well educated children are likely to become atheist adults.

Getting money out of politics and the church out of education are the two most effective things we can do to advance our civilization.

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

#117

Post by anoncake »

croes wrote: post #88
ohgodplsno wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because you get depressed if you are isolated and you get depressed if you have to fear to get infected. There is no undepressing way to handle the pandemic, only ways with less infections and deaths.

Our species has evolved to deal with deaths. Social isolation goes against human nature, it's a lot more harmful than any pandemic.

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

#118

Post by plk8nn »

cassalian wrote: post #9

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?

Is it social isolation?

Or children living a care free life shocked to learn there really are invisible monsters?

Being socially isolated wasn’t the only new reality they had to assimilate.

As someone who grew up rural, DIY, ending up further left than Sanders, the one size fits all assembly line model of education we push kids through doesn’t really seem like it’s thinking of the children.

It seems more like it’s “think of the past greatness these behaviors brought to the motherland!”

As usual the real outcome is forcing intense logistical effort on the masses to manage all this for diminishing returns in their paycheck and increase in stress.

It’s hard for me to see it as truth instead of hand me down narrative.

The Greeks taught math and physics before we had bachelors and PhDs. Our educational system looks back to medieval France, where pretentious ranking for political reasons took hold, when the top down hierarchy knew best!

If we want to think of the children stop forcing them to fellate grandpas old wives tales

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

#119

Post by anoncake »

croes wrote: post #110
pragmatic8 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if the person is healthy and young, I can’t imagine why it’d be the latter.

Because young and healthy only lowers the probability of dying and not the probability of long term effects. "COVID-19 patients also suffer kidney and lung damage at above-average rates, with kidney failure occurring in more than a third of those who become severely ill. In a few cases, the virus has even been found in spinal fluid. This can trigger an immediate infection in the brain known in medical terms as mening…

Your quote doesn't say anything about probabilities, so it does not support your argument.

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

#120

Post by DC1350 »

ilikedthatone wrote: post #92
DC1350 wrote: post #33

I'm not a child (uni student) but I've spent the last year sitting at a computer in my childhood bedroom for 14 hours a day and I'm fucking miserable. My life feels fake since nothing I'm working towards exists in the offline world.

I find this strange as you probably sitting at computer watching some twitch thing for 10 hours ? young people are spending their time with computerized things for many years already ...

On a 'regular' day I would be spending 8 hours on campus or at an office for an internship. Probably 90% of the people I interacted with on a typical day would share my goals and understand my life. Now it's all online. So the problem is there's no social pressure to do anything related to my long term goals. The time spent on a computer is not really that important
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