Ministers Were Warned More Children Would Die From Suicide than COVID-19 if they Shut Schools
Ministers were given a stark warning that more children would die from suicide than from contracting COVID-19 if they shut schools, a damning new report from parent campaigners has revealed. The Mail has more.
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on March 18th 2020 that England’s schools were to close until further notice – and they would remain shut for longer than any other country in Europe.
Many children returned to their classrooms in September 2020, only for schools to be shut again in January 2021. Even when they reopened that March, Covid outbreaks and isolation rules caused chaos.
It has now emerged that the Government was warned in November 2020 that “many more children will die from suicide than COVID-19 this year”, the Telegraph reports.
That message was given in a joint briefing paper by the Department for Education and the Independent Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours – in which they cited a rise in self-harm among young people during lockdown.
Those concerns were shared at a Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) meeting that same month – which senior scientific advisers responsible for briefing Westminster’s key players were in attendance for.
At least 10 senior officials from the Department for Education, the Cabinet Office, the Home Office and other departments were also at the meeting and therefore heard the warnings first hand.
Despite the alarm being sounded, the Government decided schools would be closed for most of the spring term in 2021.
In 2020, 161 people aged 10-19 died from suicide in England. That figure is almost five times higher than the 34 deaths from Covid for the same age group.
The suicide warning is one of nine opportunities the Government ignored to avert damage caused by closing schools during the pandemic, according to parents campaign group UsForThem.
UsForThem, which was set up by mothers Liz Cole and Molly Kingsley amid mounting concerns, is planning to release a series of reports on the various decisions made during Covid. This will include how SAGE papers documented the impact on school closures on stemming transmission was likely to be “highly limited”.
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In which case the disease wasn’t dangerous. Will anyone be held to account for this?
MUlti-millionaire communist Susan Michie has far too much power and influence.
From Jan 2021, it seems kids fared no worse in 2020 when Sweden kept schools open ( for kids up to 15yrs ) than in previous years. ”The number of deaths from any cause among the 1,951,905 children in Sweden (as of December 31, 2019) who were 1 to 16 years of age was 65 during the pre–Covid-19 period of November 2019 through February 2020 and 69 during 4 months of exposure to Covid-19 (March through June 2020) (see the Supplementary Appendix). From March through June 2020, a total of 15 children with Covid-19 (including those with MIS-C) were admitted to an ICU (0.77 per 100,000 children in this age group) (Table 1), 4 of whom were 1 to 6 years of age (0.54 per 100,000) and 11 of whom were 7 to 16 years of age (0.90 per 100,000). Four of the children had an underlying chronic coexisting condition (cancer in 2, chronic kidney disease in 1, and hematologic disease in 1). No child with Covid-19 died.” https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2026670 I’ve read elsewhere that kids dying *from* Covid actually had underlying health conditions. We all know closing schools did more harm to kids than just another respiratory virus ever would, and the… Read more »
Not my problem – I never supported lockdowns – my conscience is clear
But it is our problem… It becomes our problem if we are to prevent future occurrences…
Your conscience may be clear.. But iam afraid that isn’t going to help future generations
I’m a bit concerned that we should not over-state the case – it gives ammunition to our opponents if we’re shown to be exaggerating. In 2020, 161 people aged 10-19 died from suicide in England. That figure is almost five times higher than the 34 deaths from Covid for the same age group. In 2020 178 people aged 10-19 died from suicide in England and Wales. 14 (only) died from Covid (as main/underlying cause of death). In 2021 238 people in that age group died by suicide, 41 from Covid. I got figures from nomisweb (https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/) which makes recent ONS data reasonably accessible. I also selected data for ‘England and Wales’ rather than just England because it makes it more comparable with other ONS data. Nomisweb currently offers annual mortality statistics from 2013 up to 2021. In the past they have updated their database in early July so we can expect data for 2022 to be available fairly soon. As well as a full detail breakdown of main cause of death (by ICD-10 code) they also have mortality grouped by 47 ‘Leading Causes’: from LC01: ‘Accident’ to LC47: ‘Covid’. LC41 is ‘Suicide and injury/poisoning of undetermined intent. We can break… Read more »
If you want a properly scary statistic, look at the death rates for LC25 ‘Homicide and probable homicide’ among 10-19s. 2020 and 2021 are about 38% above the previous seven year average of about 56 per year. That’s about an extra 43 homicides of children over the two years.
Of course they knew…… They – don’t – care
The members of SAGE who recommended lockdowns and the Government Ministers who approved them should be charged with Manslaughter.
They sacrificed children in order to appease the Teaching Unions and briefly extend the lives of a few very elderly and/or seriously ill people who were already knocking on heaven’s door.
EVIL b@stards.
And to show their gratitude, teachers are still going on strike