COVID Lockdowns Should Have Been Lifted With Children Committing Suicide and ODs

Comparing the Coronavirus restrictions in the 50 states and District of Columbia, California is the most restrictive state, listed at #51, the Globe reported last week.

Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered all public schools closed, and they remain closed, since last Spring. The SAT exam was cancelled. High schoolers have lost college opportunities, academic scholarships, and sports scholarships.

While other states have allowed athletics to return, California high school and club sports teams remain benched.

This is cruel and abusive to California’s children.

California’s school kids are now seriously behind their counterparts in other states. And they are hurting because they aren’t allowed to attend school, participate in team sports, clubs, band, dances, graduations, classroom learning, and the social life that goes with attending school in person.

A group of concerned parents in Sonoma County have been demanding answers from their county health officials to questions of why their kids aren’t back in school. They created the above billboard to very visibly make their point.

The most restrictive lockdowns are in states and cities run by Democrats, and the most restrictive lockdowns within those states are in cities run by Democrats. In California, Gov. Newsom never has produced any science or medical data/statistics showing that lockdowns and stay-at-home orders have helped curb the coronavirus. Rather, many doctors have publicly said the lockdowns only exacerbated the spread, and is not the way  to address a contagious virus.

Remember when “experts” insisted that parents limit the “screen time” of their children because of the negative effects staring at a computer or television game too long has on kids?

It became very clear early on that the governor really wanted to exert totalitarian control over the state and its people once he had everyone locked down.

According to the California Department of Education, there are 6,163,001 students in California’s 10,588 public schools. There are 675,374 students in California’s 1,303 charter schools. There are 319,004 teachers in California’s public schools.

These hundreds of thousands of California teachers and millions of California students are stuck working from home on computers.

One of the largest school public school systems in the country, the Los Angeles Unified School District, has 1,302 schools, 734,641 students, and 26,556 teachers. Those 734,641 students are stuck at home “distance learning,” on computers 6-8 hours a day because the teachers union doesn’t want teachers to return to the classrooms without first extorting more money from the governor and the state budget.

A California psychologist told the Globe there is a 63% increase in overdose deaths for 2020, compared to the average of 2017-2019. She said as she understand it, suicides will cumulatively grow over the next 10 years, but overdoses are out of control right now.

Teachers and school administrators the Globe has spoken with say high school kids are dropping out at higher-than-ever rates, with too many kids ending up in Juvenile Hall, and some young girls turning to prostitution. These are children who should be in school, which is often the most stable place for them.

The lockdowns are having horrific effects on the children who should be in school, manifesting in significant depression and dramatically increasing drug use, overdoses and suicides. Here are a few news reports:

• As early as May 2020 rtmews.com reported, the global suicide rate is accelerating as coronavirus-triggered lockdowns supercharge depression and mass job losses push people over the edge. Australian and US researchers have highlighted the threat to their countries. Public school teachers’ unions in each have been issuing lists of leftist demands to be met before they will return to teaching. According to them, they’re risking their lives if they return to work.
• A spike in suicides triggered by Covid-19 lockdowns is expected to exceed deaths from the actual virus by a factor of 10 in Australia, according to researchers from Sydney University’s Brain and Mind Center, who published their findings in May.
• By July, Center for Disease Control Director Robert Redfield said in a Buck Institute webinar that suicides and drug overdoses have surpassed the death rate for COVID-19 among high school students. Redfield argued that lockdowns and lack of public schooling constituted a disproportionally negative impact on young peoples’ mental health, Townhall reported.
• A 14-year-old boy killed himself in Maryland because he had “given up” when his school district remained closed last fall, the New York Times reported, citing other suicide examples.
• In Illinois, teammates of a high school athlete who committed suicide blamed Gov. J.B. Pritzker for the state’s lockdown and a ban on many high school sports.
• One parent told The Washington Post that COVID-19 killed his son because of isolation. His school remained closed, he couldn’t play sports and the only connection he had with friends was through an online game. He got to a point where he made an “impulsive act that he could not take back.”
• In Nevada’s Clark County School District, between March 16 and December 31, 2020, 18 suicides were reported among minors, more than double than what the district reported the previous year. The youngest to commit suicide was 9 years old. The district created an early warning system in July to monitor mental health episodes of students and within six months there were 3,100 alerts, the Times reported.
• In Texas, while suicides increased across all age groups, a recent American Academy of Pediatrics report found a year-over-year increase of youth reporting suicidal thoughts or behaviors at a major metropolitan area emergency facility.

A recent report on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on suicide rates, in QJM: An International Journal of Medicine, by Leo Sher summarized the results:

“Multiple lines of evidence indicate that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has profound psychological and social effects. The psychological sequelae of the pandemic will probably persist for months and years to come. Studies indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic is associated with distress, anxiety, fear of contagion, depression and insomnia in the general population and among healthcare professionals. Social isolation, anxiety, fear of contagion, uncertainty, chronic stress and economic difficulties may lead to the development or exacerbation of depressive, anxiety, substance use and other psychiatric disorders in vulnerable populations including individuals with pre-existing psychiatric disorders and people who reside in high COVID-19 prevalence areas. Stress-related psychiatric conditions including mood and substance use disorders are associated with suicidal behavior. COVID-19 survivors may also be at elevated suicide risk. The COVID-19 crisis may increase suicide rates during and after the pandemic. Mental health consequences of the COVID-19 crisis including suicidal behavior are likely to be present for a long time and peak later than the actual pandemic. To reduce suicides during the COVID-19 crisis, it is imperative to decrease stress, anxiety, fears and loneliness in the general population. There should be traditional and social media campaigns to promote mental health and reduce distress. Active outreach is necessary, especially for people with a history of psychiatric disorders, COVID-19 survivors and older adults. Research studies are needed of how mental health consequences can be mitigated during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The psychologist we spoke with referred the Globe to an Expert Report on the COVID-19 Epidemic Response in Quebec, Canada, that Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD was recently tasked with. Two of the most telling questions and answers are below:

“What are the harms of lockdowns and governmental actions aiming to slow down the propagation of the disease on the health of the population?”

“According to a US CDC estimate, one in four young adults seriously considered suicide this past June. Among 25 to 44-year olds, the US CDC reports a 26% increase in excess all-cause mortality relative to past years, though fewer than 5% of 2020 deaths have been due to COVID-19.”

“Do Restrictions on the Activities of Young Adults Play an Important Role in Disease Spread? Do Young adults face particular harms from the lockdown restrictions?”

“According to a US CDC survey, one in four young adults aged 18 to 24 years seriously considered suicide. Other harms include lost educational opportunities with colleges and universities shutting down or providing only online classes and catastrophically high unemployment and economic dislocation.  Ironically, the lockdowns themselves have thus increased the risk of COVID-19 faced by older populations by increasing the number of households where young adults who have lost their jobs co-reside with vulnerable older parents, which increases the risk of COVID-related death.”

The psychologist noted that suicidal ideation is also a big factor vs. acted upon suicide. (The full report, with citations, is below). Notably, nowhere in California’s online data can we locate how many kids have committed suicide in California since January 2020. The psychologist said for 2020 there were 4,714 deaths still under the “pending investigation” category.

Here are a few very important questions for Governor Newsom that have gone un-asked and unanswered in all of his press briefings:

• Can you direct us to the specific scientific study or studies that point to lockdowns as effective mitigation measures?
• If masks and social distancing are so effective, then why close down businesses that implement those rules in the operation of their businesses?
• Will you be following Dr. Anthony Fauci’s December recommendation to get kids back into classroom learning?

When will California’s elected politicians show more concern for the children of California before more kids die from despair, overdoses and suicide?