Michael Ejercito wrote:
> HeartDoc Andrew, in the Holy Spirit, boldly 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!

While wonderfully hungry in the Holy Spirit, Who causes (Deuteronomy
8:3) us to hunger, I note that you, Michael, are rapture ready (Luke
17:37 means no COVID just as eagles circling over their food have no
COVID) and pray (2 Chronicles 7:14) that our Everlasting (Isaiah 9:6)
Father in Heaven continues to give us "much more" (Luke 11:13) Holy
Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) so that we'd have much more of His Help to
always say/write that we're "wonderfully hungry" in **all** ways
including especially caring to "convince it forward" (John 15:12) with
all glory (Psalm112:1) to GOD (aka HaShem, Elohim, Abba, DEO), in
the name (John 16:23) of LORD Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.

Laus DEO !