As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds • Hacker News Board

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

#471

Post by tacocataco » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 7:19 AM UTC

stolenmerch wrote: post #310

reaperducer wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%…

Not only unpopular, but probably prematurely incorrect. "Mental health consequences of the COVID-19 crisis including suicidal behavior are likely to be present for a long time and peak later than the actual pandemic." https://academic.oup.com/qjmed/article/113/10/707/5857612

So will this peak be worse then having a normal school year along side a increase in covid deaths?

This was a "trolly problem" situation. The least worse option had to be selected.

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

#472

Post by concordDance » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 7:37 AM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #79

monocasa wrote: post #30

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. 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%…

> 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).

I don't think you can be this confident. Young humans deal particularly poorly with social isolation and those previous upheavals didn't have that as the main feature.

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

#473

Post by JoshuaDavid » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 7:45 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #459

JoshuaDavid wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do you think Florida is lying and underestimating the number of COVID deaths to greater extent than California is, or the California is exaggerating the number of COVID deaths, or maybe that there's a difference in behavior between Floridians and Californians (maybe California had stricter laws but Floridians act more responsibly in terms of disease prevention). If you don't have such an explanation, and Californi…

There was no actual lockdown in any state in the USA, including California. There were instead these totally unenforced stay at home “orders” and mask “mandates” which people ignored with no consequences. It’s no surprise that the disease spread rampantly through all 50 states. I live in California and there was nothing stringent about the measures—while many people voluntarily followed them, they were routinely igno…

Alright, so after seeing what government interventions, at least in the US, looked like in practice, would you agree with the statement "Government interventions like lockdowns and school closings were a very good response."?

Because that is the comment I was responding to, which was itself a response to a comment comparing the outcomes of Florida and California. "Nowhere in the US, and very few western countries, had a sufficient response" is a valid position, and probably accurate (with the caveat that I'm not confident that a sufficient response was even possible in the US), but it wasn't really the point under discussion.

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

#474

Post by ryandrake » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 8:15 AM UTC

JoshuaDavid wrote: post #473

ryandrake wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was no actual lockdown in any state in the USA, including California. There were instead these totally unenforced stay at home “orders” and mask “mandates” which people ignored with no consequences. It’s no surprise that the disease spread rampantly through all 50 states. I live in California and there was nothing stringent about the measures—while many people voluntarily followed them, they were routinely igno…

Alright, so after seeing what government interventions, at least in the US, looked like in practice, would you agree with the statement "Government interventions like lockdowns and school closings were a very good response."? Because that is the comment I was responding to, which was itself a response to a comment comparing the outcomes of Florida and California. "Nowhere in the US, and very few western countries, ha…

I’m saying that government interventions were tragically insufficient in all 50 states. The difference between CA’s and FL’s responses was the difference between doing next to nothing and doing nothing. It’s not a surprise that the virus spread similarly out of control in both states.

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

#475

Post by qubit000 » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 8:16 AM UTC

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?

Problem is US leaders are elected based on populism rather than merit and whether theyre actually competent, let alone qualified.

The result is a political system that rewards morally bankrupt, sociopathic behavior that prioritizes self interest and profits over people.

Many will say it has worked considering how wealthy the US is and how it facilitates innovation. However, this is only made possible by the fact US, as global reserve currency of the world, is able to print $$$ w/impunity while exporting much of the resulting inflation which rest of the world has to bare -- essentially subsidizing US wealth.

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

#476

Post by whearyou » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 8:21 AM UTC

dadjoker wrote: post #320

pessimizer wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anybody else find it strange that having students out of school for another few months for their teachers to be vaccinated is being painted as the most important thing in the world when they've already been out of school for a year? It's fine to mourn the damage that's been done from kids being locked up for a year. To act like the marginal damage from adding a few more months to that year is murder, that's political…

My daughter has been doing exactly that all year as a teacher in a private school. My son has been attending full day class in a private school long before vaccinations were available. This has been true for private schools all around the country (fortunately w we don't have teachers unions who think they deserve extra special protection, more than everyone else in society). And guess what? No problems. Wash your han…

Preach

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

#477

Post by nucleardog » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 8:29 AM UTC

tehjoker wrote: post #428

stickfigure wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point we have enough data. The CDC gives an approximate IFR of 0.7% in the US. That would translate to low 7 digits. Also, it's very heavily weighted to the 70+ population. Strictly speaking from a kid's perspective, it would mostly be the experience of losing a grandparent early. It would be sad (as death almost always is) but probably not life-changing.

It's pretty incredible how easily hundreds of thousands of excess deaths, each of which is a full human life, becomes a statistic to some people let alone the millions. Don't we teach students in history classes about how easily people allow themselves to justify mass death when it is convenient?

Yep this.

If you actually stop and think about the value of a life in a real sense instead of from an abstract or monetary perspective, you're either absolutely horrified by all of this and your path is clear, or you're a monster.

For the past year I just look at my wife and look at my kid and imagine what it would be like to lose them. I would do _anything_ to protect them. I know what losing other family members to COVID feels like. I've seen first hand what it does to people (friends and family).

Almost every one of those five hundred and fifty thousand people (in the US alone) that have died from COVID meant just as much to someone. I want to afford them the same respect and put in at least a minimal effort to protect their family just the same.

To me, any argument based around what essentially amounts to an inconvenience being too much to ask to prevent those deaths just makes me disgusted. Dressing it up in some rationality by demanding absolute and incontrovertible scientific proof of efficacy is nothing but a flimsy excuse.

Approaching all of this with some empathy makes it easier on yourself and leads to better outcomes for everyone. I'm not stuck at home in the face of statistics and arguments about how I should be able to do whatever I want and damn everyone else paying the consequences. I'm at home because I don't want people to suffer.

It sucks some days, but it's easy to keep going when I know it could be the reason _my own child_ doesn't grown up without a father. It's easy to keep going when it could be the reason someone else doesn't have to go through that either.

So I lost a year of hanging out with friends and had to cut my hair in the utility sink instead of going to the hair dresser. That's such a small fucking price to pay relative to what this could cost someone it's not even a fucking question.

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

#478

Post by pqs » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 8:41 AM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #30

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?

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.

Writing from Spain. Schools are open since September, with measures such as masks, isolated groups that don't mix during recreation time, etc. It has been shown that schools are not a major vector of propagation and that kids can safely go to school. Here what has an impact in the propagation of the virus is opening bars and restaurants and allowing people to move between counties (comarca) or regions.

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

#479

Post by dan-robertson » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 8:56 AM UTC

ZoomerCretin wrote: post #166

sudosteph wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That dynamic is actually one of the reasons I think Corey Booker's "baby bonds" idea is so clever. If a child enters adulthood with some amount that has grown in a way that matches up with the economic growth at large, then maybe they won't be locked out of housing ownership.

There is not enough housing. The solution to rising prices isn't giving people more money to further bid up the price, but to increase the supply of housing which would lower (or at the very least, slow the growth of) housing prices.

Rising house prices are not a technical problem. Having house prices fall is a very big political problem.

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

#480

Post by dan-robertson » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 9:03 AM UTC

dillondoyle wrote: post #467

mjevans wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An A or B in highschool level Social Studies (how your government works) sounds like a good baseline; but that course would have to be moved down to middle-school.

That was my first thought but there are so many potential pitfalls & problems. What about learning disabled, disadvantaged, just having no access or poor school/lack of opportunity etc. And what if you fail!? we can't deny the right to vote because you can't pass a test. That's what we did to black Americans. though to be honest I'm the type that judge people who don't vote. I get mad when people say 'but it doesn't…

You could just give them all the right to vote and rely on the fact that young people tend not to vote. It’s about the closest thing to a law of sociology that there is.