According to Dame Sally Davies, former Chief Medical Officer of England, the interruption of education during COVID-19 lockdowns has caused significant harm to an entire generation. Speaking at the COVID-19 Inquiry, Davies expressed concern about the impact on children and students and emphasized the need for education to work hard to mitigate the effects. As England’s CMO from March 2011 to September 2019, Davies spoke from a place of authority on the issue, which arose after the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, around the world.
During the first module of the COVID-19 Inquiry, which will span three years and focus on pandemic resilience and preparedness, Davis made the observation that lockdowns were not previously considered. Specifically, British schools, nurseries, and universities were closed for extended periods of time during national and regional lockdowns that began in March 2020. Even after reopening, students and pupils were required to stay home if they or their classmates tested positive for COVID-19.
Range of negative impacts on kids
Studies later found a range of negative impacts on children such as the rise of eating disorders and self-harm in teens, and retardation of early development in babies and toddlers.
Speaking of the impact, Davis said: “The damage I now see to children and students from COVID, and the educational impact, tells me that education has a terrific amount of work to do.
“We have damaged a generation and it is awful as head of a college in Cambridge watching these young people struggle,” she said.
“I know in pre-schools they haven’t learned how to socialise and play properly, they haven’t learned how to read at school. We must have plans for them.”
Covid-vaccinated people are more likely to be hospitalized
Recent data presented by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that the effectiveness of older COVID-19 vaccines against hospitalization has decreased over time. According to a hospital network run by the CDC, the efficacy rate dropped to negative 8 percent. However, individuals who received one of the newer bivalent vaccines had a protection rate above zero at 29 percent. Unfortunately, this protection rate also declined to negative 8 percent after 89 days.
From January 23 to May 24, protection estimates were gathered for adults without a compromised immune system while the XBB strain was prevalent in the United States. The data was collected from individuals who were hospitalized at one of 25 hospitals across 20 states that are part of the Investigating Respiratory Viruses in the Acutely Ill network. Both cases and controls were hospitalized with COVID-like symptoms, but the cases tested positive for COVID-19 while the controls tested negative.
“We see a pattern of waning against hospitalization,” Dr. Ruth Link-Gelles of the CDC said while presenting the data to a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel as they consider updating the composition of the vaccines.
Link-Gelles didn’t specifically comment on how the effectiveness turned negative but noted the wide confidence intervals for some of the effectiveness estimates. We suggest that you check out more data on the matter in the original article written by Epoch Health.
