Liz Hodgkinson (pictured) argues a generation of young people have had their lives and future careers sacrificed
YES
by Liz Hodgkinson, author and journalist
Schools have been closed to most pupils since March to curb the spread of coronavirus — and yet statistics show that it hardly affects the under-18s.
The majority who have died from the virus have been over 80 or already very ill. So have we needlessly sacrificed the lives and future careers of a whole generation of young people for the sake of the elderly?
I believe we have. Leading paediatrician Professor Russell Viner has said there is very little evidence of any transmission in schools and nurseries, and argues they have been shut for no good reason.
When these establishments eventually reopen for all pupils, many children will catch up. But some, sadly, won’t.
One acquaintance, for instance, has been dragging his nine-year-old son around with him on jobs. He can’t afford to home-school. Clearly this boy, and all nine-year-olds, would be better off in the classroom — but his year group has been left in limbo.
My 18-year-old granddaughter will now never take A-levels, and feels uncertain what the future might hold. She feels her life is ruined. My 15-year-old grandson — a real scamp — spends most of his time in pyjamas playing computer games. He is due to take GCSEs next year, but who knows if that will happen?
But there is worse. Children have been cooped up with their parents, often in tiny flats with no gardens and with no outlets to let off steam. And there has been a worrying increase in domestic abuse. Since lockdown, calls to the National Domestic Abuse Helpline have risen by 49 per cent. For some children, school was often their only refuge.
At best, children have not been able to celebrate their birthdays, go on holiday, or do anything, really, but drive each other mad. This will result in damaged mental health for years to come, warns Professor Viner.
The young must take precedence over us oldies
Frankly, 2020 has been wiped out for these kids. My grandchildren do not know of any young person who has contracted the virus. They are healthy but have been quarantined as if they carry a deadly plague.
The welfare of these youngsters, with their whole lives in front of them, must take precedence over that of oldies like myself, who are nearing the end. Although I hope I have a little longer left, at 75 I have done pretty much all I wanted to.
This is not to say older people don’t matter — but I very much doubt that locking up the nation’s youth has saved the life of a single old person.
NO
Baroness Altmann (pictured) argues it’s socially damaging to imply that the young have missed out on education purely for the benefit of the old
by Baroness Altmann, former Pensions minister
The suggestion that younger people’s lives have been blighted in order to protect old people is wrong in so many ways.
The lockdown was designed to protect everyone and slow the spread of the virus to safeguard the NHS.
Schools were closed (for all but key workers’ children or the most vulnerable) because we were dealing with a new virus. No one knew how easily Covid-19 was transmitted by particular groups, or how their health would be impacted by it.
There were reports of some young people suffering serious symptoms, and even now, Professor Viner admits scientists still don’t know enough about how kids transmit the virus.
So it is not right to imply that the young have missed out on education purely for the benefit of the old. It is also socially damaging.
Pitting generations against each other is wrong
Indeed, if these measures really were designed to protect the older age groups, how can we possibly explain the way the frailest elderly citizens were neglected early on?
Allegedly, some elderly patients with the virus were even discharged from hospital into care homes. I was horrified that when an elderly lady living near me collapsed at home, the ambulance refused to take her to hospital, insisting her neighbours should just pop in to check on her. Older people were not prioritised.
Why did care home staff and home carers miss out on vital PPE supplies and early testing? Why was training for care homes regarding isolation and infection control lacking? I fear many elderly people have died due to such failures. Whether schools were open or not is irrelevant here.
No government closes schools lightly, and the sooner children go back the better. If that means part-time schooling, that is better than nothing. Other countries have opened their schools without serious impact, and now we must do so, too.
But children’s well-being, education and life chances have not been sacrificed to benefit others. Pitting one generation against another with cries of unfairness is divisive. If the legacy of this pandemic is an attitude that compounds intergenerational tensions, then we will all be losers.
Isolated older people, especially those without support or a garden, or with abusive partners, were all badly affected by lockdown. Every age group has been hit by issues such as mental illness, stroke, heart problems, the backlog of cancer treatments and loss of livelihoods.
Asserting that any age group has suffered the worst fails to reflect the one inalienable fact: we have all paid a hefty price to beat this virus.