Now that the pandemic is waning, it’s time to turn back and look at the wreckage. What we’re finding isn’t pretty, especially for a specific demographic: teenagers. A bevy of reports show COVID policies that shut down schools, businesses, and even playgrounds exacerbated the mental health crisis with which many adolescents were already struggling.

Like school, the pandemic has opened up a window into the lives of teenagers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that in the summer of 2020, ER visits among 12- to 17-year-olds, most of whom were girls, spiked by 22%. A few months prior, that number had spiked to 50%. Another study of a bunch of studies found that among teenagers, “the prevalence of depression and anxiety symptoms during COVID-19 have doubled, compared with pre-pandemic estimates.”