Child Protection - or Protected by Children?

As the UK continues to roll out it's impressive Covid vaccination programme, you could perhaps be forgiven for thinking you could drop your guard, focus on the future and leave the strings of control in the hands of those elected to take care of us.

You couldn't be more wrong.

Such is the progress on reducing deaths and cases of Covid that we are in danger of falling into the "Zero Covid" trap, a false goal with enormous costs for society, notably for the young. On social media, this impossible, undesirable goal is promoted by Independent Sage; a hard core, left wing extremist group of scientists who have an impressively big voice right now. Given that their very existence is questionable as Covid ceases to become the threat it once was this it is perhaps understandable. Indeed they are now having to crowdfund to continue their "work", so it's understandable they need to shout loudest. But I believe they have become victim to the very fear they have created & promoted, and this fear risks causing untold damage to society, and the younger generation in particular. Some, like Deepti Gurdasani have persistently clamoured for children as young as five to be masked. She has constructed detailed infographics detailing measures schools should implement to contain the threat children posed - in any other time she would be investigated by social services as the fringe radical she is, her brand of fabricated illness and the demonising of children is extremely disturbing. As a lecturer in machine learning, it beggar's belief that people have given her air time, responded and permitted her to escalate fear, but it fits with the current narrative and has been permitted to continue unchecked.

The deliberate control of the population by inducing disproportionate levels of fear has been written about by Laura Dodsworth, in a highly readable book "State of Fear". It's a concern Lord Jonathan Sumption, former Lord Chief Justice, has voiced many times- that we are sleepwalking into authoritarian control based on false legitimacy from the premise that government decisions are for our benefit. Driven by the fear and panic deliberately created by government we have acquiesced to a level of control over our lives previously considered the remit of authoritarian regimes like Russia and China. Even SpI-B, the behavioural advisory subgroup which reports to SAGE have admitted the excessive use of fear to control the population was regrettable and "totalitarian", yet still it continues. 

Now once again the Zero Covid brigade are focussing on the "threat" posed by children, or more precisely the escalating number of positive tests for the Indian variant in school children in the official report from Government this weekend . But there are numerous problems with viewing the positive tests reported in Bolton and other areas (where the Indian Variant is a concern) as "cases" and even as threats, and plenty of well qualified scientists are pointing this out far better than I could. My issue is CONTEXT - or complete lack thereof, and the implication of this obsession over "cases" in children.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Context

First, as an anonymous molecular biologist working in the Moderna labs points out, all 300 000+ variants of Covid known to us respond to our vaccine arsenal. ALL of them. The WHO backs this up, as do many recent scientific reports. Even the PHE data on the Astra Zeneca vaccine demonstrates that a single dose offers more protection against the Indian B.1.617.2 variant of Covid than any flu jab does for flu. The variant has been known in England since March 23rd 2021 and as Meaghan Call points out England's case numbers for B.1.617.2 have been persistently flat, with only a few minor outbreaks. Context matters.

Second, the vulnerable have had two jabs already. Most of them weeks if not months ago. 

With the vulnerable largely protected, it is imperative that we appreciate the context here and remember a) how we got to this point, and b) where we hope to be in one, five and ten years time. In March 2020, although there are many criticisms which can be levelled at government (Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnott's book "Failures of State" is the best summing up of the entire sorry tale) one luxury no decision maker really had was time. We DO have some now. And given that lockdowns have caused 282 times the loss of life years than it saved, we owe it to society to get it right!

Any society is judged by how it cares for the weakest. The children & the elderly, the disabled & vulnerable. Quite honestly, when Judgement Day comes those doing the judging won't look very favourably on the Covid pandemic years. Compulsory discharge policy to care homes & a failure to ascertain how they operated led to widespread infection and high death rates. Many perished from sheer loneliness, or have reached such a desperate state whilst incarcerated away from loved ones. Loneliness kills. The NHS knows this, although the page on loneliness where this was stated has been conveniently replaced with bland advice relating to Coronavirus. Of course it has - because that's currently all government and many in society appear to care about. 

Photo by Alex Boyd on Unsplash

As for the young, the statistics from the recent Children's Society report  makes sobering reading. "Generation Covid" have had to deal with school closures, not seeing friends, youth unemployment, climate crisis, and face uncertain futures. In the last three years, the likelihood of young people having a mental health problem has increased by 50%. Now, five children in a classroom of 30 are likely to have a mental health problem. That's 1 in 6. That is a crisis for 'years to come', as lockdowns have put children under 'unprecedented' levels of distress. Covid legislation also suspended SEND law, meaning students like my son had no further support, and dropped out of college; and families with disabled children have been shamefully neglected since last Spring. (Special Needs Jungle is an excellent resource if you need support around areas of SEND and disability.)

• 50% of all mental health problems start by the age of 14 
• 75% of young people with mental health problems aren't getting the help they need 
• 34% of those who do get referred into NHS services are not accepted into treatment

Those that are, face lengthy waiting times. A three day "urgent" request from a GP to the "Emotional Wellbeing Hub" for triage is currently a seven month wait. And that's just for triage. The Hub was created to artificially reduce the statistics for CAMHS, whose waiting times were considered unacceptable a few years ago. The Hub can be accessed by anyone, with professional referrals carrying no more weight than a parent's. Unfortunately creating additional layers in an already over-stretched and dysfunctional system doesn't improve outcomes for anyone, least of all desperate children.

Of course, this is not a situation totally down to Covid. I wrote about the persistent transfer of adult anxieties on to our children, and the impact it is having  in 2018. But after the past year and a half the situation is desperate. I wrote this then, but it resonates even more now:-

"The irony ... is that we are micromanaging our children's .... because we ourselves feel helpless. Unable to control the world we are bringing our children up in, we transfer our anxieties onto the next generation. Borne out of adult insecurity because we ourselves cannot control the worrying trends in society."

The cavalier way children are discussed in the media really alarms me, and bears little relation to the facts. Michael Absoud, Clinician and Clinical academic pointed out this weekend that 7 day case rates in England and Wales have actually dropped by two thirds since schools opened on March 8th. And testing has gone up 54% to achieve the current results in Bolton, which will increase both positive and negative results. Yet local school closures are once again being discussed. Health economists CM Whaley and Dr. Neeraj Sood, the authors of a study on transmission in schools were dismayed when it was used to demonstrate school closures were necessary, when they believed it demonstrated the opposite.  At national level longer school days and optional summer schools have also been proposed to help our children "catch up" on time missed in school, as if they are somehow empty heads needing filling - not small humans who have been collateral damage in an adult world. We've all seen the photos of children sat in solitary circles away from their friends in school, in lines 2m apart; prevented from accessing outdoor play areas despite there being little or no evidence of spread outside. We've become obsessed with data - but selective data, taken entirely out of context.

Young children often see each other as an extension of themselves, and any Reception teacher will tell you how frequently they need to remind their small pupils that their friends need their personal space. Touch is so vital for us all, but fundamentally essential for children. It's not an "optional extra" in development, close proximity to others is essential. Covid is not a threat for the vast majority of young people - their isolation and neglect has been solely for our own protection, and in theory, that of the vulnerable. In suppressing Covid via lockdowns we may also have created a health emergency for the young. Respiratory viruses are predicted to surge as our freedoms are restored, which disproportionately impact the very young.

Then there is the question of vaccinating under 18s. This presents a huge ethical dilemma, since under 18s are not, on the whole, at risk from the disease. We would be enrolling them in what is still a clinical trial of vaccination to reduce cases in order to protect adults. Our children would in effect be human shields for our fears. Fears which have been exaggerated, propagated and perpetuated to induce cooperation and control in a relentless obsession with a disease for which the average age of death is above the average life-expectancy. Historically, adults have protected their children. Put themselves in the firing line so their young can survive. Shamefully the adults of today are showing just how selfish they are. True children of the eighties, the "me first" generation have become so divorced from reality they have lost the ability to assess risk, protect the vulnerable and see the bigger picture. How ironic that this is also the generation so obsessed with "Child Protection", perhaps that should now be children for protection. 

If this doesn't sit well with you either, then now is the time to act. The younger generation deserve better, they have given so much over the past year, a youth agenda is the only way forward. After all, they are the generation of tomorrow, something we claim to be collectively focussed on. 

Photo by Jan Kopřiva on Unsplash

It's time to put our children FIRST, and I don't mean in front of us, like a shield.  

Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill

The coronavirus pandemic has shown we need more long-term thinking and planning in Government. The ‘Wellbeing of Future Generations’ Bill, if passed into law, will help tackle threats such as the climate crisis, poverty, pandemics, head on. It will force policy makers to consider the next generation - and those which follow - when reacting and managing. It will hopefully, reduce the knee-jerk "crisis management" which has become the hallmark of British politics, and promote long term, sustainable thinking. It's a step in the right direction. 

Now is the time to make a long-lasting, positive change for current and future generations. Together, we can create a better tomorrow. Support the Bill and email your MP today to ask them to attend the virtual parliamentary launch of our report, on Wednesday 30th June at 2pm, to support the #futuregenerations Bill.