I usually hate anecdotal stories, especially as it's the tool of the right to defend pseudoscience. However, there's a heap of scientific evidence behind us.
In the last six months, I've a lot of older people and family passed due to heart troubles, including my dad. I would never say anything out loud, as it's just rude, as people are grieving and I don't know for 100% sure (the fecking burden of not being a reactionary). Like a friend's mum died of heart failure 3 months after a COVID infection, and I thought to myself "this is a very good chance that COVID increased her risk" but I'm not going to be a knob and say that out loud. You know who didn't fail to give their opinion? Fucking antivaxxers everywhere. "Did you mother get the jab?" "Fuck off her last vaccine was in 2021".
The other massive glaring thing I see every day is my students. Exam scores are way down, while behavioural and emotional problems (including medication) is up. COVID infections definitely can hurt kids' cognitive ability and cause an increased risk of neurological problems. I've just see way more fighting, anger, and serious emotional troubles in school than I ever have in my 20+ years of teaching. Students are missing way more school due to illnesses like COVID but also other viral stuff like the cold and flu than they ever used to, and they're falling behind because of it.
Total shot in the dark, but I see more of my close friends struggling with depression, anxiety, and low energy than I ever remember. I don't mean to downplay the genuine struggle that is mental health, people definitely had symptoms before COVID and many other issues are completely unrelated to COVID. I'm just seeing an increase across the board with people I know, especially people who I previously considered to be a rock.
I know that anecdotal evidence isn't worth considering, but we've being posting hard science for years, and I think it's fair that we start to notice patterns in our community.
Social issues can exacerbate the biomedical stuff, making it all worse. Tons of kids lost their grandparents in the last four years, along with other family members, just as one example. Their parents have post-infection problems that frustrate the parents, that anger and frusrtation effects the kids even if the parents don't take it out on them, it makes the behavioral problems worse. kids are already stressed and then stuck in a boiler with other stressed kids, everyone's sick all the time, their parents are stressed from the profiteering on food and rent and everything.
It all feeds back on itself. Refusing to stop Covid was a world historical sin that can never be made right.
Kids today are going to be a complete shit show and will be a case study on how mass illness affects trauma, phobias, etc. Even if we were to magically eradicate every disease on earth, people who grew up during the pandemic are going to be masking, social distancing, wiping every surface with bleach, and constantly washing their hands until the day they die. If their children get sick with even the mildest cold, they will freak the fuck out like their kid is on the verge of death.
I've heard students who did remote learning in grade school who are now on middle school and high school are struggling to interact in-person. IIRC they got so used to doing things online, they don't know how to stay focused in class or second guess everything they do.
I don’t believe this. The remote learning thing was, to my knowledge, mandates for something like three months (a summer vacation) at most pretty much everywhere in the country and you’re telling me this completely stunted any part of the growth of children? Not everything else that we continue to subject children to since then? I’m losing my mind and don’t feel like I know how to socialize anymore as an adult who has not been to school in decades because I’m being gaslit by everyone around me 24/7 going on five years and counting. No. Kids are not stupid. We are doing this to them and if remote learning for brief periods of time sporadically through 20-21 has anything to do with it (and I do not believe it does) then it is extremely minimal in comparison to the sheer terror and ongoing psychic charade we have subjected them to daily since 2020.
fucking thank you