Parent's should not be forced to choose between our children's education and their safety

 My article in today's Irish Independent👇

As parents, we must not settle for hospitalisations & deaths as the only valid metrics in this pandemic. Long Covid threatens to saddle a generation of children with chronic, disabling illness for years to come. In 10 years time our children will ask us what we did to protect them. They have no voice, no vote, no agency. We must speak up on their behalf 💓

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/we-shouldnt-be-forced-to-choose-between-school-and-child-safety-40635461.html

Word version 👇: 

“I’m skared of going to school”. Meet Aoife (not her real name) who contacted me after reading an article I wrote invoking Jaws to describe school safety. Until schools are safe, I pledged last August, “My child’s not getting back in the water”.

Aoife is 13 and was shown the article by a teacher months after it was written, as “proof” that her safety concerns were justified. Her anxiety, which manifested as school refusal and self-harm, was dismissed as “nonsense” by a priest, which made her doubt her sanity. Relief at being told by her GP that he’d seen “an explosion” of pandemic related anxiety in children (i.e. “I’m normal”) was dashed on realising the waiting list to see a psychologist was over a year. Clocking my background as a therapist, Aoife messaged me for help.

The contempt with which children have been treated throughout this pandemic reminds me of The West Wing scene where Director of Communications, Toby Zeigler, is confronted by a teenager for snubbing him. “In society we’re meaningless because we’re powerless” he railed, “No risk in offending us, we don’t exist”.

School closures (a feature of “living with Covid”), meant abuse and neglect went unnoticed forcing some children to call the gardaí. Pause for a moment and think how frightened and courageous a child must be to dial 999 only to hear an automated message promising a call back that never comes.

The recent Ombudsman for Children’s report, “A childhood paused”, showed that 100% of children who contacted them cited the impact of the pandemic on their mental health. The more socially disadvantaged and medically vulnerable, the harsher the impact. The highest number of complaints, 49%, were about education, describing 2020 as a “devastating year for children”.

Two months after emerging from a lockdown prolonged by importing the Alpha variant from Britain, the Delta variant, which is 60% more transmissible with higher vaccine escape, is on our shores. Public Health England data shows that, with increasing numbers of adults vaccinated, this variant is targeting unvaccinated youngsters. We also know that double vaxxed people can catch and transmit coronavirus and that vaccines may wane within months against this variant. This has significant implications for international travel, indoor socialising and the safe reopening of schools in September.

Unable to return our child to school last September, we weren’t offered any alternatives. Some teachers kindly kept us in the loop but others just didn’t have the time. Joy at being able to participate in remote learning with classmates in January, descended into dismay. Teachers did their best, but being in ear shot of live classes, it was apparent that many children struggled to cope. Some were sharing laptops and bandwidth with multiple siblings and missed classes. One child was so overwhelmed, she broke down in tears. The teacher offered reassurance to the faceless child, but her voice too faltered. The strain on everyone was palpable.

Instead of using months of lockdown to install ventilation, the government herded children back into unsafe, unventilated, overcrowded classrooms. Desperate to get my son back to school safely and seeing no prospect of that happening at home, we loaded up the car and came to the Isle of Man, whose elimination strategy meant life continued as normal for most of the pandemic.

As luck would have it, the Manx government recently announced they were shifting to a “living with Covid” non-strategy. Given there were zero cases at the time, they fast tracked the Delta variant’s arrival so that we could all learn to live with it. Schools are now several teachers down with pupils and parents isolating. Businesses that were previously open and thriving are shut because infected visitors ambled through their doors. Having 3 feet (see flag) doesn’t mean shooting yourself in one of them is advisable.

Aoife’s parents don’t have the luxury of upping sticks. They’re both (un)employed in hospitality, which has been decimated by the government’s choice to put the aviation industry before SMEs; the lifeblood of our communities and economy. Last year, with less than 10 cases a day, we were living without Covid. Rather than opening pubs and eateries, we opened borders and imported new variants instead.

A year on, “Living with Covid” has killed 5,000 Irish citizens and condemned the rest to a purgatorial existence where deprivation of human and social contact has become a way of life.

Hospitalisations and deaths cannot be the only metrics in operation “Saving Summer”. Nphet warned that actions resulting in higher cases now, jeopardise the safe reopening of schools. We know that children have suffered psychological and physical harm as a result of both school closures and attending unsafe schools.

UK data indicates that around 7,000 children suffer with Long Covid beyond 12 months. Dr Deepti Gurdasani, epidemiologist at the University of London warned: “Exposing children to a novel virus that has long-term impacts, is completely unethical”.

Parents should not be forced to choose between their child’s education and their safety.

For those unmoved by children being potentially saddled with a chronic, debilitating illness for years to come, gifting Covid unvaccinated, compliant hosts has other consequences. Dr Stephen Griffin, virologist and associate professor at the University of Leeds warned, “We can’t ignore children in vaccination campaigns. If we do, we could end up in a cycle of variants.”

Sunday’s announced plan to vaccinate 12-15 year olds, whilst welcome, was conditional on NIAC’s long awaited recommendation. For schools to open safely in September, as a minimum, we need eligible children to be vaccinated and ventilation systems installed in all classrooms.

Nelson Mandela said, “The true character of society is revealed in how it treats its children”. Instead of gaslighting children like Aoife (now fully recovered) for raising safety concerns, we should join them in holding this government to account.