Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

medrxiv.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 348 posts

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#41

Post by cmrdporcupine »

j0ba wrote: post #6
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #2

... Because parents already suffering with anxiety from living through these years, need additional anxiety about the 'performance' of their children in the years coming. Enjoy life and be gentle with each other, that's the performance that matters.

Would you prefer society just ignores this inconvenient fact? The risk of developmental issues was obvious to many people at the beginning of the lockdowns. Now we have some data. It will help us make better decisions in the future. Every choice has consequences.

The inconvenient fact incontrovertibly established by a non-peer reviewed paper that most of HN probably just read the abstract of anyways?

I "love" how you and the comment below can take a "be gentle with each other" comment and turn it into a springboard for your anti-lockdown rhetoric.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#42

Post by dessant »

mandmandam wrote: post #33
dessant wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will manage just fine, because they are exposed to enough maskless people at home and in other social settings. And even in schools, kids often don't follow mask mandates, especially when the teacher steps out, or sets an example by wearing a chin diaper during class.

> They will manage just fine because they are exposed to enough maskless people at home and in other social settings The wealthy kids have that opportunity. Kids with natural social skills may be fine too. However, kids with two parents that are working 4 jobs won't reach their full potential. Many kids already have issues from this; and it's awful that their voices and their parents voices - and their psychologists…

Yes, times are tough for everyone, including children. I find it even more abhorrent to single out masks because "you can't see people's faces", while ignoring what their purpose is and what can they prevent. We've seen enough idiots decimate their family and friends while repeating this exact same argument.

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#43

Post by dexen »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #26
throwaway_2009 wrote: post #11

People who support lockdowns aren't interested in facts; their viewpoints are shaped by marketing. It's been blindingly obvious from the moment we knew that coronavirus had a 1% IFR pre-vaccine that all of the restrictions have been net negative. We're now over 2% of our lives into this _by any definition_, which makes it utterly incontrovertible. That's why we have constant "reminders" everywhere; it's an attempt to…

> People who support lockdowns aren't interested in facts; their viewpoints are shaped by marketing. Sweeping generalizations aren't really adding to the discussion here. Please assume the best of others. We're all trying to find the best way forward with incomplete information. And tying ideas too closely to ones identity, or that of others, won't help us adapt as more evidence come to light.

>Sweeping generalizations aren't really adding to the discussion here

That sentiment fits individualist views and policies, where it behooves us to hear out individuals and consider them on their individual merits.

However the view and policy discussed (limitations on individuals for common good) is explicitly a collectivist view and policy. Applying a sweeping generalization to a collectivist view and policy is fit and proper by the very nature of collectivism.

Edit: corrected a typo from "individuals" to "individualist".

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#44

Post by xxpor »

colordrops wrote: post #10

At this point in the pandemic we've should have come up with models that factor in the externalities of lockdown and factor that into policy decisions. That somehow still hasn't happened. People say "things are pretty much back to normal" but parents with kids in school know this is not true.

Half the problem is no one has actually expressed a goal we're working towards. Covid isn't going to go away (at least not for a while), which I think everyone at least implicitly accepts at this point. The people who are going to get vaccinated largely have (especially in a few months with the OSHA rule + booster rollout). So what are we even doing?

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#45

Post by mandmandam »

Zababa wrote: post #27
option wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our (Bay Area, CA) school district psychologist told us - “Most of our 4 and 5 years old are behind 1 to 2 year on their language and social development”. How this is not national news 24/7? It is a disaster. So much about protecting the children…

> So much about protecting the children… At least for covid, this has never been about protecting the children, mostly about protecting old people. I remember a classmate calling it "sacrificing the mental health of the youth for the physical health of the old".

I imagine children's physical health is actually being severely affected as well, especially for children in lower income families.

I would expect less physical movement overall (bad), more respiratory issues from over-wearing masks, anxiety manifesting as physical issues, and a host of other second order effects.

And let's not forget that poorer kids worldwide are facing less access to dentists and other preventative medicine overall. That people are letting this stuff slide while 'health' companies post record profits is maddening.

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#46

Post by smeej »

I wish the "Methods" section got a bit more info the assessments themselves.

These kids are a maximum of two years old. It's not like they're sitting down with math worksheets. From my (limited) understanding, most cognitive assessments in children that age have to do with responsiveness to stimuli.

It would help to know what they're testing specifically, and if it could be something extremely specific to the test that's being impacted by common covid practices, rather than the child's cognitive development as a whole.

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#47

Post by zeckalpha »

smeej wrote: post #46

I wish the "Methods" section got a bit more info the assessments themselves. These kids are a maximum of two years old. It's not like they're sitting down with math worksheets. From my (limited) understanding, most cognitive assessments in children that age have to do with responsiveness to stimuli. It would help to know what they're testing specifically, and if it could be something extremely specific to the test th…

They are younger than that, this was from August

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#49

Post by zeckalpha »

> One aspect also not investigated here is the impact of mask-wearing by the study staff during child visits and assessments [53]. The inability of infants to see full facial expressions may have eliminated non-verbal cues, muffled instructions, or otherwise altered the understanding of the test questions and instructions.

They changed their methods in 2020, so they can’t attribute this to their methods or other indirect effects of the pandemic.

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#50

Post by xrobledo84 »

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #3

How the toddlers of today growing up with fully masked teachers during their institutionalized education will manage to develop normal social skills without being able to see people’s faces is beyond me.

They’re not wearing masks during lunch
Post reply on HN