this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2024
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I dunno, there were plenty of parents over here in the UK who took Covid seriously, but still opposed the degree of restrictions in schools because of the impact it had on their kids. It basically came from a place of being aware that children were much less at risk from Covid than older people, so they accepted the need for measures that protected the vulnerable while still disagreeing with the need to keep children so isolated.
(Interestingly, the ongoing government inquiry here about the government's response to Covid has concluded that if any women had been involved in the decision-making on Covid restrictions, the restrictions on children would not have been as extreme as they were - not because women are inherently Covid-deniers, but because they would have considered the long-term impact on children, which the entirely male decison-making team simply didn't think of.)
So my assumption is that many mothers in the US felt the same way - and these people aren't Covid-denying, anti-vax, racist, homophobic, transphobic bigots. They just wanted their kids to be able to go to school normally. While undoubtedly the loudest voices in Moms for Liberty were Covid-deniers, I would expect that the majority of those who joined the group were just normal mums worried about their kids during the pandemic.
That was not really the problem though. Those kids interacting in small classrooms would undo all the work of controlling the spread of the disease. They infect each other and then carry it back home to more vulnerable people. Or to the teachers, administrators and staff members working at the schools.
That doesn't mean that the parents' concerns about how so much isolation would impact their childrens' mental, emotional, social and academic development weren't valid, though. In fact, it's pretty obvious at this point that many children were adversely affected, many in ways that will impact them for the rest of their lives. It is definitely not a given that the people that joined Moms for Liberty because they were worried about their children being so isolated during critical stages of development are also Covid deniers and bigots.
Except that this is only true for mortality. Younger people were just as likely to suffer both the immediate damage from the infection itself, and the post-infection symptoms. The difference is that a young person with moderate lung or heart damage is not at all likely to outright die. But it doesn't mean the damage is not there, or that it's okay, or will fully heal, especially when it comes to cardiac health.
We're going to see a LOT of now-children-or-teens, in 20-30 years start developing cardiovascular issues, far younger than normal.
That was not known at the time, though. What was known was that children were at a much lower risk of dying (and of getting seriously ill), and there were plenty of parents who had very valid concerns about the impact on their children. What we're going to see over the next 20-30 years is an awful lot of children growing up with severely stunted social and emotional development, which was a much more foreseeable outcome of Covid restrictions in schools than long Covid.
I'm not saying having restrictions was right or wrong. There was probably an ideal balance in there somewhere, but given the situation, it would have been a damned miracle if anyone had figured out what it was. What I'm saying is that the parents with entirely valid concerns about how the restrictions affected their childrens' development were not necessarily Covid deniers, and are certainly not necessarily bigots.