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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

#231

Post by mancerayder »

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%…

>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.

You do realize you're replying to a Reuters article about mental health results, not predictions.

Quite a hyperbolic and probably politically inclined comment.

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

#232

Post by whatthesmack »

monocasa wrote: post #137
nradov wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better description of Florida would be "perfectly average". In deaths per capita they are right in the middle of US states. Obviously Florida could have done better, but many other states have done far worse. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

The ones above Florida are either the dense area of the NY extended metro that got hit early and had trouble getting it back under control, or states ideologically aligned with Florida. Just because they're in the middle doesn't make it a good response.

It also doesn't necessarily make it a bad response. But when you factor in more than simply one detail (COVID vs COVID+economy+mental health), it starts to look like a good response.

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

#233

Post by YarickR2 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #200
afavour wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“think of the children” has always been a lie, though. Or at best a surface level truth. When the rubber hits the road (i.e. when it comes to spending money) the US as a country doesn’t care about things like early childhood education all that much. In many ways the pandemic response was in line with the norm: rich kids do just fine, poorer kids are mostly ignored.

> When the rubber hits the road (i.e. when it comes to spending money) the US as a country doesn’t care about things like early childhood education all that much. What countries fund education better per capita than the US? Can you give numbers? According to various sources, for example https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp , US per-student K-12 education funding is only behind four OECD countries: Switz…

Spending in general is not a universal or meaningful metric to measure quality of education, details matter. Huge sums spent on school security/meals/transportation do nothing to increase quality of schooling compared to countries where all those measures are unnecessary (safe urban environments with parents able to feed kids by themselves)

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

#234

Post by School-Cotton »

ceejayoz wrote: post #67
nradov wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's horrifying how we've allowed politicians to inflict collective punishment on our children for over a year. The data is clear that COVID-19 is less dangerous to children than seasonal influenza.

They can still bring it home to parents, grandparents, and the general community. It’s silly to dismiss the indirect effects as if they don’t exist.

Yes, and? Educating children is more important than keeping elderly people alive. You know this to be true if you do a utilitarian analysis as objectively as possible rather than ceding to emotion.

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

#236

Post by hiram112 »

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%…

Well let's say there was one extra suicide caused by lockdowns. And we know that something like 2/3 of Covid "deaths" are occurring in nursing homes among very elderly who, statistically, might live a year or so longer had they not got Covid.

If we're comparing years of life, isn't one 16 year old worth 60-70 85 year olds in nursing homes? Maybe more because one year in the life of an 84 year old who's already experienced a full life is worth a lot less than a 16 year old going on 17. Societally wise, it's much worse to sacrifice a young person for an 80 year old who's essentially a burden on the rest.

This comparison of the value of a life is morbid, but we've been making decisions like this anyway, even if the media has refused to speak of it openly.

And of course this assumes that all these lockdowns, school closings, etc. made any difference. Again, we can debate that and both sides have data to make their case.

So yeah, maybe one or two suicides and the massive increase of unknown mental health issues weren't a good tradeoff for the unknown number of mostly elderly whose lives were extended a year or two.

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

#237

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

sjg007 wrote: post #212
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 f…

I don't think we've done a poll asking that question. At any rate this is a representative democracy so we expect our leaders to trust the experts.

> I don't think we've done a poll asking that question.

You don't have to, it is common sense. Would a country be willing to go into social distancing, schools and restaurants closed, etc. in order to save one elderly person somewhere? Of course not. How about two? That is where the debate starts, but that debate is foreign to people (whether public-health academics interested in pushing numbers to zero, or health ministers whose job performance is judged only on looking proactive) whose main concern is avoiding death.

Even in a representative democracy you don't have to expect leaders to trust the experts if those experts go beyond the pale. Among the scientific advisors to governments, a handful have suggested maintaining strict social distancing and masks even after COVID to have a shot at eradicating flu, etc., and from an expert public-health viewpoint they may be perfectly right, but would the public expect their elected officials to heed that advice?

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

#238

Post by whatthesmack »

jacob2484 wrote: post #197
emkoemko wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if US really cared about children they would ended the humanitarian crisis in Yemen... so far 85 000+ children under 5 starved to death and they saying 400,000 are going to if this blockade doesn't end.

It's up to the U.S. to fix every single problem?

Not necessarily. But at least don't actively perpetuate problems.

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

#239

Post by WalterGR »

jacob2484 wrote: post #201
redisman wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting claims. How do you know FL economy and kids depression is doing so much better than CA?

Unemployment rates for one. But now, numbers are skewed because we printed billions of dollars to bail out California.

we printed billions of dollars to bail out California.

Do you have a (non-opinion piece) citation for this from a reputable source?

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

#240

Post by saiya-jin »

stickfigure wrote: post #167
monocasa wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What proof would you believe without empirically letting the death rate get into the double digits to begin with?

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.

Do your numbers account for all the indirect consequences? Hospitals overwhelmed means people with some issues refusing to get that exam that would diagnose early cancer / small heart attack / some other underlying condition. Regular checks hugely postponed or cancelled. People with existing mental issues are a story on its own.

From what I recall, I've read some interviews with heads of cancer clinics in Czech republic which is hit pretty hard, and they reported that they don't see many new patients in early stages of cancer anymore, people who come to them are mostly late stage which manifests hard, and they often go straight to palliative care. Is this some peer-reviewed study published in Nature with nice numbers and graphs? Of course not, we'll get to those numbers maybe 10 years after covid is under control, maybe. But its real people dying out there, mostly quietly without much media attention.

Pregnancy is a serious situation with covid, it can lead to many complications, abortion, and in case of serious complications for the mother, doctors at least here in Switzerland either perform abortion / force early delivery depending on age, since mother can't manage to breath on support enough for both of them (my wife is pregnant right now and senior doctor and we both got covid some 2 months ago, so this is something we checked on pretty intensively... luckily so far so good).

There is no win, we all take a heavy mental toll in confinement / job uncertainty or loss. But the risks are real on the other side too and its not so clearly cut for everyone. I don't have a clear answer on this myself.

EDIT: related to original topic - we caught covid from our little son going to kindergarden. In semi/hard lockdown, small kids going to schools is by probably the strongest infection vector. They can't keep the discipline as well as adults can. Heck, most adults can't keep up the discipline 1+ year consistently.

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