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.
I’ll say it with less grace: the “remote learning was the devil” crowd are full of shit. Many of the ills of remote learning that people cited have less to do with their kids being home and more to do with the evils of capitalism demanding too much of people so they struggle with childcare while they’re working. Schools are used as daycare so the working class can work instead of raising their kids.
Furthermore, idk what the person we’re responding to thinks but generally those who I’ve seen demonize remote learning for the “social impacts” also demonize the idea of making students and teachers wear respirators and use air filters when they’re crammed into school, which means de facto supporting forcibly infecting kids with a debilitating disease. I have very little patience for the “remote learning was bad” crowd. Like damn if y’all hate your kids so much that you hate having them around and want to disable them with the plague, just go back in time and get surgically sterilized before you have them.