UsforThemIreland

Massive question here about the role played by increased screen time during the pandemic in driving up rates of ADHD.

Are we finally hearing some sense at the COVID inquiry? Lockdowns deemed to be a failure? Disproportionate? Unsustainable? Not as effective as claimed? I agree with all that... The biggest policy mistake in my lifetime.

"But most of all, my message will be a simple and clear one: this must never happen again." @annelongfield, Children's Commissioner during the pandemic, writing in @Telegraph telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/2…

@AllisonPearson @UsforThemUK I started trying to get schools re-opened, started emailing groups of parents and politicians and was basically told to shut up by everyone. Looking back now it seems unreal.

Proud to have stood shoulder to shoulder with @UsforThemUK in the fight to keep schools open and to protect children from the inevitable harms of lockdown. We saw it coming. The speech delay, the mental health crisis, the ghost kids who never went back to school. Teaching unions were a disgrace. So proud but also furious.

@lensiseethrough @UsforThemUK @SelfHarmRes @SunetraGupta @ToniaBuxton @BareReality @thelucyjohnston I saw this was the first item on the @BBCNews. They referred to 'a lost generation.' We knew it was going to happen. I emailed parents and parents associations, politicians at the time. I was told to shut up basically. I'm glad I did it but it felt like a lonely place at the time

Bittersweet to see children's charities finally find their voice. The harm was predictable and predicted and might have been stopped had it not been left for a vanishingly small number of us - @UsforThemUK and a few brave professionals and journalists - to stand against the lockdown juggernaut in spring 2020. If any of these organisations feel like putting their newfound courage to the test, the unexplained excess death spike in younger cohorts and their parents would be a great place to start. telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/2…

A generation betrayed - and needing support urgently. 'Antidepressant prescriptions for teens hit 1m a year for first time' 1/4 #comment" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/1…

Sorry, PM, lockdown was a historic mistake racking up a £400 billion debt which our children’s children will still be paying off. Our cities are hollowed out, millions lost the habit of working and a staggering 5.4million of working age are on benefits. There is a hospital waiting list of 7.4million people, thousands on that list are dying before they can be seen, and 1 million children and young people are waiting for mental health services. The country is massively poorer and more neurotic. There really is nothing to be proud of.

During the pandemic, the State imposed a very large burden on our children and now they are paying the price educationally and emotionally. The government and the main opposition parties bear a heavy responsibility for this. @TheSundayIndo independent.ie/opinion/commen…

Images of children's playgrounds closed off for their 'health' during lockdown leave a particularly sour taste in the mouth. Many sensible people supported this madness. And it was exactly that - indefensible madness.

What a horrid picture on my article, but important to remember. When children were finally allowed to return to the classroom, they were forced to wear uncomfortable and disruptive masks for hours on end. Did the politicians do the same? Of course not. telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/0…

“Lockdown was our generation’s greatest error… A generation of children has been failed… For what? A virus that posed them almost no threat, certainly no more danger than they faced on a day-to-day basis in normal pre-COVID life.” telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/0…

We sacrificed the wellbeing of our children. For what ? Irrational fear ! Fear induced by extreme zerocovid ‘scientists’ and public health officials (who have since disappeared from public life) and perpetuated by corrupt politicians and media. telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/0…

“A new report for the Scottish COVID Inquiry suggests there was ‘insufficient or no evidence’ to suggest that lockdowns, social distancing and face masks had any impact on slowing the spread of the virus.” scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-…

🚨 Excess non-covid deaths almost at pandemic 2020 levels Why is there radio silence from government? ⁦@DrCharlesL⁩ ⁦@carlheneghan⁩

Even though we knew it would happen this way, it’s quite devastating to watch the first days of the #CovidInquiry play out. A deplorable fear-fuelled propaganda campaign that screwed over a generation and lacked any plausible exit mechanism has set up a doom-loop of cognitive dissonance: that lockdown and school closures, devastating though they were, were a respectable and necessary public health response to perceived emergency; that it would be acceptable to deploy such tools again; that common sense, personal responsibility for fitness and health couldn’t be the answer. This is how a society implodes.

Ministers’ had ‘chilling’ secret unit to curb lockdown dissent telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/0…

The @guardian wakes up to the damage of covid restrictions on children and young people which they cheered on loudly.

"Schools in England have seen an increase in absences on Fridays since the pandemic, with lockdowns appearing to have changed attitudes towards attendance. There are fears that these strikes...are reinforcing signals that school is optional." telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness…

Prolonged school closures for #COVID19 have been catastrophic for child health They have deepened inequalities, possibly for generations “In-person schooling is essential even during periods of high transmission of COVID-19” Our latest in @BMJ_EBM ebm.bmj.com/content/early/…

“We didn’t understand that it’s a fairly low fatality rate and that it’s a disease mainly in the elderly, kind of like flu is, although a bit different than that.” ~ Bill Gates