Recent education guidelines - Corona virus Syndrome by proxy - a real threat to our children's well-being and future.

Britons are more scared of corona virus than the rest of the world. (1) Simon Wren-Lewis, emeritus professor of economics and fellow of Merton College, Oxford states that the fear of corona virus itself represents the greatest degree of threat to our economy and future.(2) Such levels of fear are not unfounded, as people are bombarded daily with 'woefully misleading figures' as to the number of deaths (3), grossly inflated hospital admission figures (4) and exaggerated reports presenting our NHS hospitals as a corona virus war zone.

This fear is now a recognised syndrome (5) and is now endemic among the majority of the UK adult population.

Now it appears that fear is being played out by our education system, by proxy via our children, notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence that children do not transmit Covid and are least likely to developing serious illness as a result of it, and irrespective of the recognised immediate and long term psychological harm these dystopian rules may have on the mental well-being of the most vulnerable and impressionable in our society. (6)

Transmission child to adult.

The Sun, no stranger to hyperbole, states categorically in its usual erudite terminology, "No Kidding. No case of child passing on coronavirus to an adult exists, scientists say" (7) Notwithstanding the source, if correct then why are children being segregated, isolated and ‘bubbled’, while sending ‘air hugs’ to their friends from their chalk circle confines, (8) observed from behind an impenetrable Covid firewall by thermometer armed, PPE wearing teachers, ready to evacuate at the merest cough?

Transmission child to child

Current guidelines do not require a child under 11 to wear a face mask (9) and there is sound reason implicit in this rule. It is accepted science that, whilst the role of children in transmission is unclear, consistent evidence is demonstrating a lower likelihood of acquiring infection, and lower rates of children bringing infections into households. (10) Just how low is that likelihood? In some countries, e.g. Iceland and Italy, it has been found to be zero. (11) The American Academy of Paediatrics reports that children infrequently transmit Covid-19 to each other or to adults. (12) France too, concludes there is no significant among children or from student to teachers. (13) The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health accord with other countries sating The importance of children in transmitting the virus is difficult to establish, particularly because of the number of asymptomatic cases, but there is some evidence that their role in transmitting the virus is limited. (14)

Child infection prognosis

Research and findings, too numerous to cite, agree, most children who become infected with the COVID-19 virus have no symptoms, or they have milder symptoms such as low-grade fever, fatigue, and cough. Many will not be aware of the sickness at all. (15)

Conclusion

The question that screams out from the above is one echoed across the UK by the non-supine, independent thinking majority. If our children cannot transmit it to adults, cannot transmit it to each other and, notwithstanding the preceding, if they did catch it they will not suffer from it, why on earth are we compelling them to live out some Orwellian education experiment, to underpin the political posturing and assuage and abate the fears of those adults, obviously occupying positions they have no business occupying, whilst issuing such incomprehensible edicts their private school attending children will never have to suffer?

It is time for an open and inclusive consultation, absent political bias and ambition, across all sectors and stakeholders, especially parents, to address the obvious conflict between fact and political fiction and retract these onerous and harmful measures and so save our children from the terrible impact of Corona Virus Syndrome by proxy endemic in the majority of our government induced quaking society.

(1) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/britons-scared-coronavirus-infection-rest-world/

(2) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/15/coronavirus-fear-lockdown-recession

(3) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/17/public-health-englands-exaggerated-death-statistics-scandal/

(4) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/20/coronavirus-hospital-admissions-inflated-height-pandemic-investigation/

(5) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/da.23071

(6) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00787-020-01549-w See Also: https://time.com/5870478/children-mental-health-coronavirus/

(7) https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11513344/no-case-child-passing-coronavirus-to-adult-scientists-say/

(8) https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11624611/schools-reopen-coronavirus-social-distancing-air-hugs/

(9) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/face-coverings-when-to-wear-one-and-how-to-make-your-own/face-coverings-when-to-wear-one-and-how-to-make-your-own#:~:text=children%20under%20the%20age%20of,illness%20or%20impairment%2C%20or%20disability

(10) https://dontforgetthebubbles.com/evidence-summary-paediatric-covid-19-literature/

(11) https://europepmc.org/article/MED/32289214 See Also: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.17.20053157v1

(12) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200710100934.htm

(13) https://www.pasteur.fr/en/press-area/press-documents/covid-19-primary-schools-no-significant-transmission-among-children-students-teachers

(14) https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/resources/covid-19-research-evidence-summaries#transmission

(15) https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/coronavirus-outbreak-and-kids#:~:text=Most%20children%20who%20become%20infected,to%20the%20spread%20of%20coronavirus.