Michael Ejercito wrote:

>https://www.reddit.com/r/LockdownSkepticism/comments/1f6fygf/how_did_the_pandemic_impact_babies_starting/
>
>
>How did the pandemic impact babies starting school as children now?
>1 day ago
>
>Share
>Vanessa Clarke
>Education reporter
>Fiona Young A baby in a blue sleepsuit is lying in a moses basket. Above
>the basket his father's hand is holding an ipad and on the screen there
>is a couple in a garden waving helloFiona Young
>Baby Elijah, who was born in the strictest lockdown, met his
>grandparents for the first time online
>On 25 March 2020, Fiona and Ben Young drove to their local maternity
>unit through London’s empty streets. When they arrived, security guards
>sent them to the back entrance. It was day three of England's first
>lockdown and the front was surrounded by patients being treated by
>doctors in hazmat suits.
>Two days later, after a long labour, they welcomed baby Elijah.
>Delighted and exhausted, they left the hospital and headed home, full of
>anticipation over their new life as parents.
>But because of lockdown, it was far from what they expected.
>"No-one was allowed to visit us for months - there were no newborn
>cuddles with family," Fiona recalls.
>"I had a number to ring if there was an emergency, which didn’t work. We
>had no health visitor and no midwives. Our first visitor was a friend
>who walked four hours across London to sit in our garden."
>Elijah, now four and about to start school, is one of tens of thousands
>of babies born during the Covid pandemic. He is also one of 200 children
>being studied as a 'lockdown baby'.
>The Bicycle (Born in Covid Year, Core Lockdown Effects) study, which
>launched in July, is looking at whether the lockdowns had an impact on
>children's talking and thinking skills.
>Based at London's City University, it also involves five other English
>universities.
>A girl with curly hair is smiling at the camera in a light blue jumper
>More than a third of the children going into reception at Elizabeth
>Selby have speech and language needs
>"Some children may have benefited from more time at home with their
>parents and some children might have been negatively impacted," Prof
>Lucy Henry of City University explains.
>"They may be learning words more slowly or their fine motor skills may
>possibly be behind.
>"The real question is: who was affected and what can we do to support
>them as they go into their school lives?"
>Reduced interactions with family members and the loss of access to
>services such as health visitors has had a serious impact on the speech
>and language of some of these children, initial research by the
>University of Leeds found at the end of 2023.
>In Bethnal Green, London, twins Aqil and Fawaz were just eight weeks old
>when the pandemic hit.
>Their mother, Fahmeda Ahmed, lived in a second-floor flat with her
>husband and their two older children - Hasan, four, and two-year-old
>Khaijah.
>"It was just the same day over and over again," she said. "We couldn't
>go out, we couldn’t socialise, we couldn’t invite friends over and we
>couldn't go anywhere with the kids."
>A boy in a grey hat and a stripy navy jumper sits beside a lady in a
>black and white dress and a black hijab. They are both holding an orange
>pencil and writing. They are in a classroom sitting at a yellow table
>with yellow seats and red blinds behind them
>Fahmeda and her son Aqil had regular pre-school catch up sessions to
>help him with his progress
>Fahmeda bought an inflatable swimming pool for the balcony to try and
>keep her older children entertained.
>She attempted to homeschool her four-year-old, who had just started
>reception, but he completely stopped talking.
>And then there was baby Aqil. He was having difficulty swallowing and
>Fahmeda tried for months to get a face-to-face appointment with a doctor.
>Eventually, at three months, he was diagnosed with tracheomalacia, a
>condition where the walls of a child’s windpipe collapse. He needed a
>minor operation.
>Check out BBC Tiny Happy People's pages on language development for
>three- to four- and four- to five-year-olds
>Covid inquiry investigates impact on children
>Child speech delays increase following lockdowns
>How will museums of tomorrow tell the Covid story?
>“I was so scared going into the hospital because you would hear stories
>that you would catch [Covid]," Fahmeda said.
>"And I remember when Aqil was going into theatre, I was so upset. There
>was a nurse there and she said ‘I'm so sorry. I can't hug you’."
>Four years on, Aqil and Fawaz are healthy young boys, about to start
>reception at Elizabeth Selby Infants' School in Bethnal Green.
>But they both have speech and language needs.
>Their two-year child development check was delayed, they weren't able to
>attend any baby classes and their first year involved very little
>interaction with the outside world.
>Fahmeda believes all these factors have had a lasting effect, and
>experts agree.
>"Children need opportunities to go out into the world and have new
>experiences and with those new experiences come new words - but that is
>happening less during the cost-of-living crisis and it happened less
>during the pandemic," says Jane Harris, head of children's charity
>Speech and Language UK.
>A teacher with brown hair holds up a large book to a class of
>pre-schoolers sitting on a colourful mat with a bug pattern, listening
>to the story. Many are sitting with their legs crossed with their hands
>together.
>The school has employed a speech and language therapist for its
>pre-schoolers for the first time
>Prof Catherine Davies, from the University of Leeds, who is also
>involved in the study, says many of the safety nets for families like
>Fahmeda's were taken away during the pandemic.
>“The education systems weren't there, health and medical support was not
>there, their interaction with their wider social networks wasn't there,"
>she said.
>One third of pre-schoolers (34%) at Elizabeth Selby had speech and
>language needs during the last school year - up from a quarter (25%) in
>2020, according to the school.
>This year, the school has had to employ a speech and language therapist
>for its pre-school class for the first time.
>In June, 22,952 children were waiting 19 to 52 weeks for a speech and
>language therapy appointment, and 5,832 children were waiting over a
>year, according to NHS England.
>The Department for Education in England says it will be focusing on high
>quality early education and is continuing the Nuffield Early Language
>Intervention programme for another year.
>“If I could, I'd have a speech and language teacher in five days a week
>- and I would still have a waiting list," says Shahi Ahmed, head teacher
>at Elizabeth Selby.
>"But I have to think about the budget and how that impacts the school."
>Mr Ahmed says there is a "massive increase" in the number of children
>needing help with toilet training, which takes teachers away from
>teaching. The school is now bringing in outside agencies to help support
>parents.
>And among all of this, attendance is falling, which Mr Ahmed says is
>important as it sets "routine and expectations".
>A man with brown hair and a beige shirt sits at a table smiling at a
>young girl with curly hair and a leopard body warmer and beige woollen
>cardigan. She is playing a blue drum and smiling back.
>Lots of families haven't had health visitors or access to GP appointments
>Mr Ahmed believes the increase in children needing more help is
>"absolutely" a direct result of the pandemic.
>"They didn’t have the chance to interact with other children or even
>just go out or have visitors to the house," he says.
>"They've been limited to what's around them - and that has caused a gap
>in their social interaction skills."
>Thankfully, Fahmeda says her twin boys have already benefited from their
>time in Elizabeth Selby's pre-school classes.
>"Fawaz has changed completely - he never used to call me mum," she says,
>wiping her tears away.
>"It's so nice to hear. You might think I'm being silly, but that’s so
>amazing and it’s because of the teachers."
>As for Elijah, his first interactions with family members were all on Zoom.
>"We would hold up the iPad to his face and introduce him but he wasn’t
>really paying much attention," Fiona said.
>"I think he saw the lights and colour but I don’t think he understood he
>was meeting humans."
>He didn't attend any baby classes as they had all been cancelled. "He
>spent the first three months solely with us," she said.
>Elijah was diagnosed with tongue tie when he was born. Fiona and Ben
>were told by a midwife that they would be better off getting tongue-tie
>surgery, also known as a lingual frenotomy, privately, as there would be
>a long wait on the NHS.
>"The first day I came back from hospital I was phoning around
>frantically to find someone who could do it privately but no-one was
>allowed to physically come in - it wasn’t legal for them to come in and
>do the operation," Fiona explained.
>Elijah finally had the operation when he was two-months-old.
>Katie Monnelly A young girl in a yellow dress and hairband is sitting on
>a couch and over her shoulder we can see a pink ipad with a game with
>two grey squares. Her hand is ready to touch the game. Katie Monnelly
>Over the next year, the Bicycle project will be using interactive games
>to study children born during the strictest lockdown
>The long-term impact of Elijah's early years remain to be seen but it
>was certainly a "tricky" time for his parents.
>Two years after Elijah's birth, Fiona and Ben were back in the same
>maternity room, welcoming a baby girl.
>“It was a completely different experience, both in the hospital and
>after," Fiona said.
>"My mum saw Amelia within 12 hours and was giving her newborn cuddles."
>The couple volunteered to take part in the Bicycle study because they
>want to help researchers understand exactly how the lockdowns affected
>the youngest members of society.
>It's hoped the results will help answer one pressing question - if it
>happens again, what should we do differently?

In the interim, we are 100% prepared/protected in the "full armor of
GOD" (Ephesians 6:11) which we put on as soon as we use Apostle Paul's
secret (Philippians 4:12). Though masking is less protective, it helps
us avoid the appearance of doing the evil of spreading airborne
pathogens while there are people getting sick because of not being
100% protected. It is written that we're to "abstain from **all**
appearance of doing evil" (1 Thessalonians 5:22 w/**emphasis**).

Meanwhile, the only *perfect* (Matt 5:47-8 ) way to eradicate the
COVID-19 virus, thereby saving lives, in the UK & elsewhere is by
rapidly (i.e. use the "Rapid COVID-19 Test" ) finding out at any given
moment, including even while on-line, who among us are unwittingly
contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic) in order to
"convince it forward" (John 15:12) for them to call their doctor and
self-quarantine per their doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic.
Thus, we're hoping for the best while preparing for the worse-case
scenario of the Alpha lineage mutations and others like the Omicron,
Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota, Lambda, Mu & Delta lineage mutations
combining via slip-RNA-replication to form hybrids like "Deltamicron"
that may render current COVID vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no
longer effective.

Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry (
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.med.cardiology/c/6ZoE95d-VKc/m/14vVZoyOBgAJ
) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.

So how are you ?