Ministers were given a stark warning that more children would die from suicide than from contracting COVID-19 if they shut schools, a damning new report from parent campaigners has revealed. The Mail has more.
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on March 18th 2020 that England’s schools were to close until further notice – and they would remain shut for longer than any other country in Europe.
Many children returned to their classrooms in September 2020, only for schools to be shut again in January 2021. Even when they reopened that March, Covid outbreaks and isolation rules caused chaos.
It has now emerged that the Government was warned in November 2020 that “many more children will die from suicide than COVID-19 this year”, the Telegraph reports.
That message was given in a joint briefing paper by the Department for Education and the Independent Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours – in which they cited a rise in self-harm among young people during lockdown.
Those concerns were shared at a Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) meeting that same month – which senior scientific advisers responsible for briefing Westminster’s key players were in attendance for.
At least 10 senior officials from the Department for Education, the Cabinet Office, the Home Office and other departments were also at the meeting and therefore heard the warnings first hand.
Despite the alarm being sounded, the Government decided schools would be closed for most of the spring term in 2021.
In 2020, 161 people aged 10-19 died from suicide in England. That figure is almost five times higher than the 34 deaths from Covid for the same age group.
The suicide warning is one of nine opportunities the Government ignored to avert damage caused by closing schools during the pandemic, according to parents campaign group UsForThem.
UsForThem, which was set up by mothers Liz Cole and Molly Kingsley amid mounting concerns, is planning to release a series of reports on the various decisions made during Covid. This will include how SAGE papers documented the impact on school closures on stemming transmission was likely to be “highly limited”.
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