Says the same crowd who ask why kids are online so much and agonize over our digital society. I notice you spelled "Tik-Tok" wrong ... and there's a body of evidence that social media use decreases mental health.
The statement "they'll adapt" is so wrong that it's totally [expletive deleted] stupid.
What about people who don't have wi-fi at home? Abusive parents? What about those children who rely on mental health support at school? Those who live in shoebox condos/apartments which may be overcrowded and poor spaces for their education?
I notice you haven't even mentioned the education.
What would you do if you couldn't be with your friends in-person, indefinitely?
We rank closures not only on sheer COVID numbers, but also on social utilities of the location being locked down. I daresay that education, mental health, and socialization is more important than sporting events.
Instead of knee-jerking to "shut it down," are there any intermediate measures to reduce spread within schools? Like vaccine mandates (which I would support if proposed by the government)?
Edited for expansion of ideas.
100%
*****
Lets add, I am and remain pro-vaxx, and have been......
Notwithstanding that.........the reaction is not correlated with the epidemiological reaction if we accept every word of it without question.
The Black Death to which to some people equate this killed between 30-60% of all Europeans.
Lets be 100% clear that would be beyond a crisis and we ought to respond strongly as a society at a small fraction of the scale of that......
But what scale, again?
Roughly 5,000,000 deaths are attributed to Covid worldwide; with a global population of ~8 Billion.
If accepted at face value, that's 0.06% of the world's population.
Also, that number is inclusive of periods of much higher fatality rates in the early months when treatment was more of a mystery and LTCs were consistent source of outbreak.
Today, the fatality rates are substantially lower.
Severe responses that curtail natural and necessary human behavior (socialization) are not merited by that level of incidence. (I've got my proof, and its less an issue for me than most, but I actually care about other people)
The human population grew in 2020 and will grow again in 2021.
That is not said to diminish the need for vaccination or to be mindful of good hygiene; it is said to place to the very real concern in proper context.
We have not taken similarly scaled action to deal with any other similarly scaled problem.........EVER.
Not a disease, not a social condition (crime, car accidents etc.).
Never have we been this harsh, for this long, outside of war time.
Its time to care more for the millions who have died due to deferred medical care, due to poverty, due to social isolation and mental health crises.
A reminder to everyone, 100% of us will die, no exceptions; that's how life always ends. We needn't be cavalier about that; but nor should we live life in fear of it.