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> "I think really people underestimate the public health consequences of having the schools closed on the kids," Redfield said Did he name these consequences?

• verdverm 6y ago
  One example I know of is school meals for low income students. My brother, a teacher, was telling me about socialization and brain development in adolescents. There is a definite impact that we have very little understanding of.
  • johnnyo 6y ago
    We don’t need to reopen schools to solve the meal problem. My school district kept providing meals even after the school itself was closed.
    • bigwavedave 6y ago
      Same, I haven't seen a single instance in real life where the system hasn't kept providing meals.
    • jgalt212 6y ago
      and exposing those folks to similar risk levels as if the schools had not closed int he first place.
      • MikeTheGreat 6y ago
        No-contact pickup works for school-provided meals, too
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      • JshWright 6y ago
        Not at all... Depending on the setting the meals are either picked up at the school, or dropped off at the student's home. Both are generally easy to arrange in a "no contact" way. It's not like they are inviting the students into the cafeteria for one big group meal.
      • hamandcheese 6y ago
        No, only the poor people.
  • thih9 6y ago
    Can you point me to where Robert Redfield mentioned it? In my earlier comment I asked about his reasoning.
    • pengaru 6y ago
      I don't know about Redfield, but Fauci has gone on the record on this particular subject in his recent interviews.
  • piotrkaminski 6y ago
    Why does it seem like everyone assumes you can only socialize in school? I don't think homeschooled kids are particularly deficient in this regard either.
    • dx87 6y ago
      That's highly dependent on the parents. A lot of homeschooled kids end up normal, but the stereotype of homeshooled kids not knowing how to behave in a social setting exists for a reason. It'll be even worse in the current situation where you have parents that are working full time and don't have time to also organize social activities like the parents who intentionally did homeschooling.
    • seneca 6y ago
      There's actually a very common joke in the homeschool community: "Sometimes I worry my child is missing out on socializing in school, so once in a while I beat them up and steal their lunch money".
    • mixmastamyk 6y ago
      People aren't allowed to socialize anywhere anymore. School would enable one partially.
  • greedo 6y ago
    My district still has free meals every weekday, and has continued its "backpack" program where students take home meals for weekends.
• jgalt212 6y ago
  I think any parent who's been homeschooling, or attempting to for the greater part of this year's second semester is well aware of the negative consequences for children (and their parents) of keeping the schools closed. As far as I'm concerned the intellectually honest debate is whether the unknown negative consequences of opening schools trumps the very well known and very broadly observed negative consequences of closing the schools.
  • agravier 6y ago
    Hi, I'm not in the USA and I'm home schooling (since longer than the pandemic though) so I'm not aware of the situation for forced home schoolers, aside from imagining that it's probably quite unpleasant and hard to organize, and I don't know what the health threats are. I'm quite curious though so if you may clarify the health threat for your children?
    • mensetmanusman 6y ago
      There is no home schooling if both parents are working. Big picture, neglect and associated psychological harms. It’s interesting that data show the flu to be about 100x worse for young children than COVID. But, as is usual through history, the value of children pale in comparison to the value of adults.
      • agravier 6y ago
        Thanks, I understand, both parents working and no one to take care of the children at home must be the most common case in the US.
      • vvanders 6y ago
        Have a source for that data? Just because it might be lower risk to children still means that they bring it back home which gives you a near ideal vector to reinfect a large portion of the population.
        • ahupp 6y ago
• leereeves 6y ago
  Reuters also wrote an article about this statement, also without mentioning the specific consequences. I suspect he didn't name them, but NPR has discussed the consequences before with other experts. Dr. Dimitri Christakis, who directs the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Hospital, and is the editor-in-chief of JAMA Pediatrics, shared concerns about abuse and about children's mental health: > Mental health and social-emotional development, Christakis argues, have been less discussed: "The social-emotional needs of children to connect with other children in real time and space, whether it's for physical activity, unstructured play or structured play, this is immensely important for young children in particular." A new study in JAMA Pediatrics, he says, documents elevated depression and anxiety among children under lockdown in China. > A third major risk, says Christakis, is child abuse. With schools closed and activities canceled, adults who are mandatory reporters, such as teachers, are less likely to catch wind of abuse or neglect. Hospitals around the country are reporting a rise in admissions for severe child abuse injuries and even deaths — a rise that coincides with lockdown orders. And a sex-abuse hotline operated by the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network reported that half its calls in March came from minors, for the first time in its history. https://www.npr.org/2020/05/14/855641420/with-school-buildings-closed-children-s-mental-health-is-suffering https://www.npr.org/2020/05/14/855641420/with-school-buildin... And in another article, a former Secretary of Education also shared his concern that not all homes are safe: > I'm heartbroken about the kids for whom school is the place that provides structure and support and a sense of security that don't have that. I mean, for me, as a kid, after my mom passed when I was 8, I lived with my dad. My dad had an undiagnosed Alzheimer's, and so home was this place that was scary and unpredictable and unsafe. But school is the place that was reliable and consistent, where I had positive relationships with adults and peers. And I wouldn't be alive today without those school experiences. > And I worry about the kids who are in homes where there is abuse, where there is addiction, where family members - as you say - have lost jobs, where family members are sick or passed away. https://www.npr.org/2020/04/24/844562989/the-long-term-effects-of-months-long-school-closures-on-u-s-children https://www.npr.org/2020/04/24/844562989/the-long-term-effec...
• dpau 6y ago
  I couldn’t find anything documented about the consequences of having schools closed, only the consequences of them being open. According to internal CDC documents, “fully reopening schools and universities remained the “highest risk” for the spread of the coronavirus” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/us/politics/trump-schools-reopening.html?searchResultPosition=1 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/us/politics/trump-schools...
  • leereeves 6y ago
    That article actually says it's "highest risk" according to the CDC website.[1] > Since May, the C.D.C. website [link to 1] has cautioned that full reopening would be “highest risk,” And from that site, we can see that it's not the highest risk among all possible ways of spreading COVID-19, it's simply the scenario with the highest risk of COVID-19 spread among 3 scenarios for schools: full reopening, virtual-only instruction, or: > Small, in-person classes, activities, and events. Groups of students stay together and with the same teacher throughout/across school days and groups do not mix. Students remain at least 6 feet apart and do not share objects I believe the CDC director is recommending something like that middle risk plan, and saying that the risk of spreading coronavirus under this plan is outweighed by the risks of having schools closed. 1: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/schools.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-...
    • dpau 6y ago
      The problem is that the "public health consequences of having the schools closed on the kids" have not been defined, yet alone measured, and thus we have no basis for comparison against the fairly well-established risks of opening schools. The director is making a political statement based on hunches rather than evaluating risks based on science.
      • leereeves 6y ago
        I agree that the CDC director should have given a lot more detail in his statement. The risks certainly haven't been explained to the public very well. But the experts seem to agree about the risks: > The American Academy of Pediatrics' guidance "strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school." https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/29/884638999/u-s-pediatricians-call-for-in-person-school-this-fall https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...
• daxfohl 6y ago
  That they will miss out on bullying, peer pressure, processed food, and school shootings.
• cafard 6y ago
  The ones usually mentioned are a) lack of exercise, b) malnutrition for want of school lunch programs.