As it turns out, COVID lockdowns harmed children without giving them any added protection from the virus itself.
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Who could have possibly guessed?
The latest data point to add to the pandemic blunder of punishing children during COVID comes from a study promoted by the American Academy of Pediatrics. According to the study by Dr. Drew Watson, a team physician for the University of Wisconsin Athletics, the cancellation of youth sports during the pandemic “was accompanied by decreased physical activity and quality of life, as well as startlingly high levels of anxiety and depression.”
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While those levels of anxiety and depression have dropped with the return of youth sports, according to Watson, “we are still seeing higher levels of anxiety and depression than before COVID-19, suggesting that this will remain a vitally important priority for years to come.”
This is yet another failure that lies at the feet of politicians and bureaucrats who promoted lockdowns for children. It’s a failure for everyone who worked to keep schools shut and prevented children from playing school sports. It’s a failure for those who shut down youth sports programs across the country to “protect” children from a virus that was less dangerous to them than the flu. It’s a failure for New York City Democrats, including Mayor Eric Adams, who are still preventing children from playing organized sports.
It’s also a failure for the AAP itself. After initially coming out forcefully in favor of getting children back in schools, the AAP bent the knee to left-wing, anti-science zealotry. The organization backtracked its school stance to fall in line with teachers unions that were holding children’s educations hostage in exchange for more money. The AAP wanted mask mandates for children in schools and for unvaccinated children in sports, lending credibility to politicians like Adams who cracked down on children under the false premise that COVID was especially dangerous to them.
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The AAP could, and should, have been defiant in its stance that children must be given normal lives during the pandemic that simply never posed a real risk to them. It failed, as did every politician, bureaucrat, and organization that imposed or called for lockdowns that left children isolated, anxious, and depressed.
The AAP can still be salvaged, but many of the other groups and people cannot, and no one should escape scrutiny for the inexcusable burdens that were placed on children for up to two years or more.
