Note: this article discusses suicide.
The growing evidence of the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines has caused an unexpected problem for those wishing to keep Australians locked up for the foreseeable future: once vaccinated, people tend to become less fearful of the virus. To combat this, Australia’s COVID-zero gang recently made one final pivot: saving the kids.
The concerns around children and COVID isn’t completely without foundation. Unlike previous strains, Delta does appear to infect children at a materially higher rate. However, the good news is that nearly all those infections appear to be mild or asymptomatic (in places like the United States and United Kingdom, a large number of infections are picked up through regular “at home” tests).
The UK, which provides the most detailed public data set reported six deaths in children under 15 since schools reopened in March. Half its paediatric deaths have been “in individuals with an underlying complex disability with high healthcare needs, such as tube feeding or assistance with breathing”.
In total, between March 2020 and February 2021, 3105 children died in the UK, but only 25 died with COVID.
Australian paediatric infectious disease expert Professor Fiona Russell tweeted that the UK data indicated “no increase in COVID-19 hospitalisations in children [and] no evidence of increased severity of Delta in children [and] ICU cases & deaths stabilising”.
Given the relative population in Australia, easing restrictions at 80% adult vaccination levels may lead to one or possibly two tragic paediatric deaths. While it is challenging to justify a policy setting that results in the death of a child, maintaining lockdowns is also arguably even more lethal. Eight teenage girls died by suicide in the first half of 2021, up from only one in 2020 and three 2019.
Then there are the longer-term educational impacts of children not attending school. A UK peer-reviewed paper found that “children have least to gain and most to lose from school closures. This pandemic has seen an unprecedented intergenerational transfer of harm and costs from elderly socioeconomically privileged people to disadvantaged children” while “children with special educational needs or who are already disadvantaged are at increased risk of harm”.
The effect of school closures in Australia is significant, most notably in Victoria where children have spent almost a year outside the classroom since March 2020. It is not only learning that is affected. School provides kids with freedom of expression, physical fitness and mental health support. And in tragic cases, it provides refuge from domestic violence and abuse.
It is illustrative that schools in the UK returned safely in March, when only 1.3% of the population had been vaccinated. In Victoria, where schools are only now starting to reopen, more than 52% of all people have been fully vaccinated. In Sydney, schools will open with nearly 70% of the population vaccinated.
More encouragingly, data released by the Office of National Statistics in the UK indicates that the concern surrounding paediatric “long COVID-19” also appears unfounded. A study of 26,000 participants found only 3.2% of children aged between two and 11 reported any symptoms 12 to 16 weeks after infection. Interestingly, 3.6% of the control group (kids aged two to 11 who never contracted COVID) suffered symptoms, a higher rate than those of children who had previously tested positive.
In the choice between the lesser of two evils, the potential for a tiny number of COVID-related deaths is dwarfed by the increase in suicide and the potential for long-term harms being magnified by school closures.
The data indicates that Victorian and NSW governments should open the schools right now. Our kids’ lives might just depend on it.
For anyone seeking help, Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and Beyond Blue is 1300 22 4636. In an emergency, call 000.
A recent read, ‘Premonition’, would be a valuable addition to Adam’s reading list. It describes, among other things, how research showed that schools are the greatest vectors for disease. This should come as no surprise to any parent. Shutting down schools is the singular most effective way to reduce transmission.
Given that suicide rates among the young have surprisingly remained unchanged from 2019, that statistic must be a fine piece of cherry picking.
Warning, this is an advertisement from the tourist industry mouthpiece Schwab
And there, exactly, is an example of the level of Australian discourse.
Is there any human shield that Schwab won’t take hostage, to use as an excuse to peddle his business interest priorities?
Do you have any specific comment on the piece?
Yes we all need human contact.
If these children get sent off to school to get Covid19 and they develop Long Covid or Kawasaki disease who will be sorry?
Which parent will say I prioritized my child’s social life over their future health and well being?
Learning to manage emotions is part of the growing up process.
Only children can probably be helped with the “friend’s bubble”.
Yes we all need to think of the children, that “thinking” includes avoiding worst outlier potential diseases like Kawasaki or others based in illogical fears such as Stoneman Syndrome, Alice In Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS), Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS) , Alkaptonuria, Chronic Focal Encephalitis, Situs inversus, Wilsons syndrome , etc, etc, the list is endless.
As a friend of mine (research pediatrician) is one of the international team assembled to examine the number of Kawasaki Disease presentations in the US while Covid ran completely rife with the very natural occurrence of the disease of this overwhelming inflamatory disease thought to be an immune system over reaction to a viral infection.
It was interesting to find that the mortality rate in the US was 1 in 2 rather than 1 in 7. The UK noted that they had an increased number and mortality rate and left it at that, which indicates not enough money or time to devote to this and a health system being overwhelmed..
Australia has had a proportionately increased number of presentations with the mortality rate remaining at 1 in 7 and so, the benefit of not having a health system completely over whelmed stands out.
Survival should not be the be the end all, most Kawasaki Disease children who are treated live, but, they may end up permanently injured, with deafness, blindness and strokes a common feature.
And so, while we are talking about letting thousands upon thousands of children mixing in a Covid19 world, the outliers are not so unusual. As for some of the syndromes to which you refer, I am hard pressed to understand how a total body inflamatory response to a viral syndrome could cause all the organs of the body to rearrange themselves to the other side if the body (Situs Inversus), is there a research project happening about these different syndromes??
That was by point.
My point
Yes, and it’s not just children suffering.
Humans are social animals, it’s hard wired.
There are misanthropes who don’t need it, and those who are comfortably numb to the plight of others, but generally we all need human interaction. Often people who from no lockdown regions are the keenest to force them on Melbournians or Sydneysiders. Online commentary has been a sad, telling reveal of the Australian psyche.
Terrible mistakes have been made. Australians are now in a bad and abusive relationship with Covid.
Some are desperately trying to save the relationship, at any cost.
Many are still trying to justify lockdowns, and punitively blame others with ridiculous comments about seeing someone with no mask one day, or grand final spectators who ‘blatantly’ did this or that. It’s all nonsense.
This prolonged approach was always going to be unworkable. It succeeded in providing breathing room for vaccination rates to increase and that is an important fact. But that is it’s only useful function and it’s days must come to an end.
We are moving into the inevitable stage of living with Covid, the alternative of which is permanent shutdown of all internal borders, separation of cities from regions, and the internment of the nation as a health/police state.
Get ready to be part of the solution, not a brick around the country bemoaning every forward step and lamenting that others are not more restricted.
Maybe, but compared to others ….
Total covid deaths to date
Australia 1,357
UK 136,986
Lucky to be in Australia
Well, Tony, it wasn’t unworkable, because it worked. It may have been unsustainable, but only in the correct sense of the word, meaning you can’t do it forever.
And it was only meant to get us to Covid zero in the first instance, pre vaccines, which it did, and now it is only meant to delay widespread infection allowing people to get vaccinated, should they choose to do so. Thus far, it has worked, perfectly, actually.
As to the staging of opening up, it really is an argument at the fringes. We’ll open up soon, and you can go wherever you like.
Did it work though? We won’t know until we open up. We may have only delayed those deaths. Many people with other health issues may very well be just as vulnerable with or without the vaccination. It’s not an immortality shot.
If we see 5000 deaths in the next six months, would the vast majority of those succumbed to covid with or without vaccination?
PS my point being the lockdowns may have done enormous damage for little benefit.
What worked? Did you not understand the article?
It requires an utter lack of shame to be schwabbing to this extent – nothing new there.
Next we’ll be told that without FREEDOM as busload of kittens will not be able to get to their next dialysis session, in the Seychelles. (Or perhaps the Caymans.)
How very dare we be so cruel!
Or “Take pity, and think of the poor kittens and puppies stuck at home under lock-down, with only their humans around to play and interact with! ….. Tear down these walls Mr/Ms Premier!”?
How can you callously ignore the suffering of millions under lockdown. Perhaps because you are not locked down?