The nation’s recent lockdown policies and mask mandates will create a generation of children who exhibit lower IQs and signs of social brain damage, according to Dr. Mark McDonald, a clinical psychiatrist for children and adolescents, in an interview with host Cindy Drukier of a Dec. 25 episode of NTD’s The Nation Speaks.
McDonald cited an Aug. 11 study by Browns University (pdf) which found that “children born during the pandemic have significantly reduced verbal, motor, and overall cognitive performance compared to children born pre-pandemic.”
The masks, “zoom schools,” and lockdown mandates lead to “deprivation overall, of social contact, [of] not being able to see faces, being stuck at home all day long, has actually caused brain damage to the youngsters,” said McDonald.
In another interview in the episode, the director of Oxford University’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, Professor Carl Heneghan, cited evidence that pandemic restrictions and the “fear we instill into children” has led to “worsening” of “psychological problems.”
Heneghan cited his Oct. 2 study which concluded that “eight out of ten children and adolescents report worsening of behavior or any psychological symptoms or an increase in negative feelings due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“School closures contributed to increased anxiety, loneliness and stress; negative feelings due to COVID-19 increased with the duration of school closures,” the study reported. “Deteriorating mental health was found to be worse in females and older adolescents.”
Adolescents above the age of 12 also did worse than children under the age of 12, as adolescents face increasing peer pressure, social pressure, and are more aware of messages being delivered globally, according to Heneghan.
“The first thing is to de-escalate any fear and anxiety around COVID for children,” Heneghan said, adding that “for children, [COVID] is actually a very safe disease” and that children should not be worried about the impact of COVID “on themselves, or their future health.”
He also added that “shutting areas like schools was a mistake,” as keeping them open is good for education, “social connectedness, and well-being.”
“We should really prioritize education and those interventions that are in children’s best interest,” Heneghan stated.
According to a Dec. 20 study, data from the CDC (Center For Disease Control and Prevention) also showed that mental health-related visits in 2020, when pandemic restrictions were first imposed, increased by 24 percent in ages 5–11 and by 31 percent in ages 12–17 in comparison to 2019 data.
The Millennial Star
It’s no surprise that a society which taxes the young so the old can go on vacation, piles on debt spending and financing for the young to pay, so the old can live comfortably, will destroy the formative years of the youth so the old don’t have to endure the consequences of their unhealthy lifestyle. Its not like this same group would rather kill babies than sacrifice their time to raise them.
It’s a recursion of pathologies all the way down.
I’m with ya on that, Sute. I’ve been saddened the past two years by the very clear sacrifice of children on the altar of their parents’ fears. It’s a breathtaking perversion of parental responsibility. Unfortunately, going forward it’s going to get used to erode the family further. We’re already seeing it in education: parents shouldn’t get to have a say in what kids are taught. Sooner than we care to admit, parents will be “unable to keep their kids safe from disease.” Time to sweep them all into state-run facilities.
I have thought about this constantly since you posted. Because we have a large family and our kids always have someone to play with, this hasn’t affected us as much as others.
But this post brought to my remembrance an incident about a year ago – the little girl next door is an only child about three or four, and she was constantly asking to play with my kids every single time she saw one of us step outside. Usually we said yes, we can play, but there was a period of about 6 weeks last November where we locked ourselves down pretty severely in preparation for a surgical procedure for one of my children – if she tested positive for COVID, they’d have to delay the procedure. For weeks she’d ask to play and we had to say no. Until one day she asked, we said no, and she completely broke down. It was the saddest, most pitiful thing I had ever seen in my life.
It wasn’t until that moment that I realized that as an only child, the pandemic has been disproportionately difficult for her. Since then, the girl’s mother left her dad and is living with another guy the next town over. I’ve been thinking about her a lot in this past week, hoping she’s ok, but knowing in my heart that likely it will be many, many years until she is ok again.
I’ve also found it telling that at the same time ‘everyone’ is so motivated to protect (or think they are protecting) themselves from this virus, to the extent of all the things discussed on this blog, more drastic legislation regarding both euthanasia and abortion has been passed, at least here in Australia. Several of our states did this, including mine. Abortion laws were changed to allow abortion up to a much later time, for broader reasons. And the euthanasia laws were stepped up here and in other states, without including sufficient protection for conscientious objection or the safety of patients.
Is it not amazing that, while many are so afraid of something that they think might kill them but actually is much less harmful than they fear, killing the unborn and the elderly (or making it easier for them to die) is also considered the right thing to do, and in no way contradictory? The same elderly who are most at risk for that same virus, for whom (ostensibly) we are all having our lives upended and even risking them through potentially dangerous vaccines? Let alone the unborn whose ‘right’ to live is considered less than a potential parent’s ‘right’ to choose not to have them part of their lives?
Tamara, very interesting that the news has not gotten to us here of new abortion and euthanasia laws in Australia. I usually see that kind of information, but so much of our news is being controlled and blocked these days. Those politicians really, really care about saving lives, amiright?
Why would there be anything else on the news except SARS-CoV? But also, it’s Australian state law, so probably not considered terribly important or interesting to anyone else.
The Spectator Australia had a nice cover cartoon about it and comments in their editorial in a July (I think) issue which express things well, but I can’t share the images in a comment.