Covid and Kids: Once More Into the Breach

Everywhere outside we see nature exemplifying why this seasonal cycle is called spring. The temperature warms, the flowers burst forth, the leaves revive, the fields of play and the open waters call us like Greek sirens, whose victims were so eager to answer they never saw the rocks that destroyed their ships and drowned the passengers.

No one wants to be under Covid’s house arrest anymore. All have tired of sheltering-in and lockdowns and lonely basement workouts and hair too long ; casual dinners at corner restaurants, happy hours of raised glasses and office talk all absent from our lives for what seems forever too long. Death numbers and morbid TV seers offer hard truths but little relief, with only an occasional eye of the storm shedding a brief swath of a hopeful light.  We are all in this together.

In this world health emergency, the youngest of us slipped beneath the radar, dismissed by adults with legitimate and terrible worries over jobs, food, money, rent. Tension hangs over dinner tables like cloudbursts ready to implode, relationships become strained for all the wrong reasons, kids fear for family and personal survival. Young people need structure, a world where certainty of home and school, love and support, anchor them in security so they can be the free, independent devils of childhood and adolescence, mocking with rebellion what they love and need most.

The routine of centuries has been suspended, and kids hang like flags on a windless, breezeless day, droopy, listless, waiting to fly. During this time, parents and adults took solace in a presumed childhood immunity to Coronavirus, only worrying about their children’s missed class time, staying focused on online learning and the dinner menu. Their emotional and physical well-being secondary to the real world of adult concerns. In the last ten days, the cloud ruptured.

With states across the country planning for schools to open in the summer or September, Covid launched a new offensive, targeting young people, causing terrible suffering. While Covid 19 itself is not the issue, the virus has triggered a horrifying illness called pediatric multi system inflammatory syndrome. When infected, an overreaction of the immune system occurs, which leads to swollen blood vessels, damaged organs, and a host of symptoms. Damage may be permanent or even lethal, as three deaths have occurred in NYC. CNN reports many victims show damaged hearts. Quick treatment for otherwise healthy kids holds the key to surviving without permanent damage.

Our society doesn’t have much respect nor affection for our senior population. As cabin fever coupled with economic paralysis grates more on all of us, many voices, mainly those on the pro-life Republican side, clamored for virtually a full opening of the states, despite lack of direction. Pres Trump has said we are “warriors,” and will not close the country if a second wave hits later in the year. As Texas Lt Gov Patrick epitomized the let-them-eat-death sentiment regarding seniors by saying grandparents should be willing to die to open the economy.  

But are we now willing to sacrifice our children? Higher rates of death to silver America inevitably will result from greater weakening or dissembling of Covid defenses. But pride goeth before the fall, and our arrogance in thinking we know and can control the most deadly of nature’s forces has led us to this point of millions of cases and 100,000 deaths in the US alone. Our young people from one to under twenty are now exposed to MIS-C subjugation.  

   By sacrificing our elders for greater normalcy, are we risking our kids as collateral damage in a pandemic? In January, many played down the threat of Covid -19 until, like most serial killers, it angered at the lack of respect. According to Dr. Steve Kernie writing in “Health Matters”, this disease is still very rare. That is some good news in this bleak crisis, though not much consolation to the parents of the three kids who have died from it, nor for those facing serious cardiac and other organ issues. We place our faith in doctors like Kernie and Fauci and scientists and health experts to monitor closely this new front, and care for the children so afflicted; the true warriors, once more into the breach.

MIS-C may evolve into a growing threat as the nation’s schools open. Teenagers, still a large segment of college students, remain vulnerable to MIS-C. Many campuses will have openings, even if limited. School districts will open their buildings for the new school year. Officials assure parents strict adherence to Covid-19 protocols will be followed. Good luck with that.

The US may be ready to push our elders off the Covid Cliff for the economic reboot, but the currency may be the lives and health of a generation of young people.  Betting on everyone to be smart and responsible does not work well in our society. Old people may not mean much, but now there is a secondary target population. First the old. Now the young. And no one knows how much will satisfy the Covid Piper before he takes them all.