HeartDoc Andrew wrote:
> 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 ?
>
I am wonderfully hungry!

Michael