dad guy wrote:
I've got a toddler, and I've honestly never worried for a second about her getting Covid. She goes to daycare, goes shopping with us, goes to the playground, basically lives a normal life. Stats, probabilities, etc. just didn't seem to justify anxiety around kids and Covid.
I just found out that several acquaintances with children about the same age as mine have basically been quarantining them in their homes for the last year+. One just posted on Facebook that they took their 2 year old to a store for the first time in a year, and the kid had no idea what a "store" full of "people" actually was and was pretty weirded out.
This...has to be bad for a kid? No?
Children paid a heavy price to "protect the vulnerable" this past year. Many children have been effectively placed in solitary confinement, quarantined from their friends, and received crap remote instruction from their schools. I know children who have been taken to the hospital for panic attacks, have dropped 30 percentiles on standardized tests, are getting Cs and Ds where they once were getting As and Bs, and one who won't be graduating from high school this year due to their inability to adjust to remote learning.
All this and COVID has a lower IFR than the flu for this demographic. It is shameful how we mishandled this pandemic at the expense of the children.
So, yes, I agree with you.