Stringent School COVID-19 Policies are Child Abuse
Remote learning and required masking policies have great harm with little benefit
The inconsistency, incongruity and insanity of stringent school Covid-19 remote learning and required masking policies could clearly be seen this past Sunday as over 74,000 screaming fans, mostly maskless, packed tightly into the confines of southern California’s SoFi stadium to watch the Rams beat the 49ers, while the following day, every school student in CA was forced to wear a mask for the entire day while indoors.
More egregious still is the fact that children are being denied the opportunity for in-person instruction in large numbers despite overwhelming evidence that
Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs or lockdowns) don't significantly lower mortality
Adolescents are at very low risk from Covid-19, especially if they are vaccinated
Remote learning greatly harms educational advancement.
Child mental health is negatively impacted by isolation
The Burbio school opening tracker shows that as recently as the week of January 10th, 7,462 schools with hundreds of thousands of students had disruptions to in-person learning due to Covid-19.
Proponents of stringent school Covid-19 policies, such as Governors Newsom of CA and Murphy of NJ, ignore the very real harms inflicted on students. By early in 2021 it was abundantly clear that there were large jumps in teen-age suicide attempts and drug/alcohol abuse deaths. A June 2021 CDC report states:
In May 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, ED visits for suspected suicide attempts began to increase among adolescents aged 12–17 years, especially girls. During February 21–March 20, 2021, suspected suicide attempt ED visits were 50.6% higher among girls aged 12–17 years than during the same period in 2019.
Similarly, alcohol and drug induced deaths among adolescents aged 13 to 18 have increased dramatically since 2019, much more than respiratory deaths including from
Covid-19!
From pre-pandemic 2019 to 2020 respiratory deaths Ages 13-18 (presumably from Covid-19) increased by 92 while drug/alcohol deaths increased by a much larger 465!
While proponents of stringent school covid-19 policies can validly argue that there would have been some increase in adolescent suicides and mental health issues regardless of school policies, conclusive proof of the harm to young children of universal masking has recently been reported.
Brown University researchers report results that show a disturbingly large 23% reduction in an early learning IQ composite, from a high of just under 100 in 2019, to around 80 in 2020, and finally 77 in 2021, presumably due to widespread masking!
The educational harm is not just to early development. Since the 1970s, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has monitored the academic performance of 9-, 13-, and 17-year-old students with what have become known as the long-term trend (LTT) assessments.
The academic achievement results show the first drop in 17 years among 9 and 13 year old children.
Not surprisingly the learning deficits from stringent Covid-19 school policies are felt most heavily by students in the lower achievement percentiles who constitute a large fraction of the students in urban areas which NOT uncoincidentally are the areas with the most stringent school policies. Many largely wealthy and highly-educated voters who support Governor Newsom and Governor Murphy may still support the harmful school policies because their children are only marginally harmed educationally.
Some states have harmed students more than others:
Finally, if the known harms aren’t enough to convince the most obstinate proponent of the imprudence of stringent school Covid-19 policies, there is now a growing realization that the associated hyper-hygiene movement is likely causing long-term damage to the immune systems of a generation of children with devastating potential long-term health consequences including increases in diseases such as diabetes, MS, Lupus, and Crones Disease due to the Hygiene Hypothesis.
In summary, school closures, remote learning, and mask mandates, while defensible as short term measures early in the pandemic when shelter-in-place orders were in effect, hospitals were overwhelmed and Covid-19 potential impacts were unknown, are now completely unjustified scientifically (and morally); Advocates of continuing these policies can rightly be described as guilty of child abuse.