The destruction caused by government imposed pandemic restrictions, especially lockdowns is becoming more obvious as researchers look at the damage.
Articles discussed below:
- Increased illness from alcohol abuse.
- Chronic absenteeism in California schools tripled after the pandemic shutdowns.
- High portions of colleges that are closed since the pandemic are Christian.
- The lockdowns actually did affect your perception of time.
8/3/23 – SciTechDaily – Lockdowns and Liquor: Surging Severe, Alcohol-Related Liver Injury During Covid Pandemic – One study quantifies what was obvious at the time of the government ordered shutdowns. Sales of booze accelerated and abuse of alcohol skyrocketed.
This study describes that alcohol caused liver illnesses were already increasing from 2016 through 2020. The sad news is there is a 12.4% increase in liver illnesses from alcohol abuse in 2020, which was the harshest year of lockdowns. Increases were more severe for people aged 18 to 44, showing a 20% jump in hospital admissions.
Hospital deaths from alcohol abuse increased 24.6% in the lockdown year.
What’da ya’ know? Locking people in the houses with nothing to do but watch video games and drink resulted in a lot more people drinking and a lot more people going to the hospital with alcohol driven hepatitis and other illnesses.
Oh, if only there had been a bunch of people predicting this. Oh wait. There were.
How I wish we had been warned. Oh, yeah. We were.
9/9/23 – Inland Empire Daily Bulletin – Chronic Absenteeism in California Schools Is At “Pivotal Moment” – Devastating impact on children’s education from the Covid lockdowns is becoming more evident.
State educators define “chronic absenteeism” as missing 18 days of classes during the school year, which is 10% of the annual instruction days.
Some statistics for the 2021-2022 academic year, with data for the 22-23 year obviously not yet available:
- 10% – average statewide chronic absenteeism before the pandemic.
- 30%-statewide average of chronic absenteeism in 2021-2022 academic year; which is three times the rate before the pandemic.
- 21.8% – Corona-Norco Unified School District, in Riverside County, the largest school district in the county; this is the least horrible statistic in the article.
- 32% – chronic absenteeism in Los Angeles County.
- 43.1% – chronic absenteeism rate for San Bernardino City Unified, a very poor, mostly Hispanic city in the Inland Empire.
- 50% – chronic absenteeism amongst kindergartners who are black, Pacific Islander or disabled; this is the specific category with worst attendance, which is absolutely appalling. Those kids aren’t even getting onto education track. How will they ever, ever get caught up?
Some observations.
Chronic absenteeism tripled after the pandemic. Tripled.
Article cites many officials describing the cause of trouble, with residual Covid fears only being one factor mentioned. (Why do you suppose so many parents are fearful of Covid?)
Many efforts are described from a variety of officials to get attendance back on track. From comments in the article seems like there may be some small progress, but very little.
A distressing number of children have just checked out of public school. They are enrolled, but only show up for school if it works for their family, transportation is available, nobody in the family has even a sniffle, none of the younger siblings need a sitter for the day, and the family is not frightened of sending their children to the school.
How in the world will those children ever catch up?
The bureaucrats in the educational system are cited as saying they are trying to do something, but their efforts look feeble and off target. Thought comes to mind whether they are willing to just let the children fade away into the distance.
8/22/23 – Campus Reform – Over 40% of colleges closed since COVID-19 are Christian – Drop in attendance and other financial pressures have resulted in a lot of colleges closing their doors after the pandemic. Published analysis shows 40% of those that have either closed or consolidated had a faith-based, Christian focus.
Enrollment in all two-year colleges collapsed by 20% in fall 2022. Article points this is a drop in attendance 20 times greater than before the pandemic. A twenty fold increase.
Article points to a poll at the Wall Street Journal on 3/31/23: Americans Are Losing Faith in College Education, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds. The survey shows 56% of people in the study do not believe a four-year degree is worth the cost. Primary reason is the perception that graduates do not have specific job skills and accumulate a large amount of debt in the process of not obtaining marketable skills.
This is up from 47% in 2017 and 40% in 2013 who don’t think a four-year degree is worth the cost and time.
Rise from 40% to 56% in a decade.
5/31/23 – New York Post – Covid-19 lockdowns had same effect on memory of serving jail time: study – You are not imagining it when you wonder whether your perception of time is out of balance.
Study by Scottish researchers found that Covid lockdowns affected perception of time. People in the study had difficulty accurately placing events in recent past.
The impact on distorted memory and distorted perception of time is on par with people who have been incarcerated.
Article says social isolation is one of the factors that drives the distorted perception of time.
Wow, lockdowns have the same impact on memory as jail. Who would have ever thought that?
So, you are not just imagining your time perception is out of kilter.
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