Put the Kids First
Last week I highlighted the story of the Yankees’ post-vaccination testing outbreak as a vaccine success story — and a cautionary tale of interpreting data out of context. Now let’s exit the batting cage and survey the playing field.
Today I’m thrilled to share with you my latest opinion piece for the Washington Post, co-authored with the indefatigable Monica Gandhi, Tracy Hoeg, and Allison Krug.
I really hope you read it. What are our main points?
It’s time to return kids to normalcy. Let’s unmask kids outside, allow them to have a normal camp experience, and plan for a full return to school in the fall. The data supports it. Kids’ health and well-being depend on it.
Kids are generally at very low risk for COVID-19.
Kids are indirectly protected by the widespread vaccination of adults (and of course other eligible kids).
Per our calculations, the chance of outdoor transmission right now is approximately 0.00000007%. (That’s seven zeros.)
Kids’ social, emotional, and mental health has suffered greatly during the pandemic (This is where the Washington Post really edited down our original piece. I get it. People don’t want to read more than 800 words. See below for more on the mental health fallout from the pandemic — and why it matters.)
The immediate threat to kids isn't being unmasked outdoors or getting COVID from touching playground equipment; it's the harms of restrictions that aren't rooted in science.
By the time fall rolls around, we’ll be in much better shape — with even lower case rates and more people vaccinated. Kids need assurances now that they’ll have normal school in the fall.
My co-authors and I agree: masks are not the hill to die on. We are not opposed to masks; we advocate for those who want to continue wearing masks. This is about FRAMING risk because there are collateral harms to kids that aren’t being measured.
Remember that while the vaccines are here, no one is immune to the mental health toll of the pandemic. Remember that stress lives in our bodies. For 15 months, my patients (teens and adults) have experienced surges in blood pressure, diabetes markers, cholesterol levels, and weight from stress-related and disorganized eating plus the gravitational pull toward self-soothing behaviors and substances like alcohol and sugar. Stress — among other things — is making us sick.
Childhood trauma is a big driver of cardiovascular events in adulthood. There is no shortage of evidence on the bodily harms — and poor medical outcomes — resulting from adverse childhood experiences and chronic stress. In my 20 years of medical practice, I regularly witness the physical and medical health outcomes of past trauma in my patients. If the pandemic isn't trauma, what is? Whether we’ve lost a loved one, our job, or our in-person classroom experience, we've all experienced loss.
No one has actually taken the time to let the kids speak about what the restrictions do. We’ve habituated to masking, distancing, assigning seats on buses and in cafeterias, and very little interaction at school. Socialization, small workgroups, and collaborations have been disrupted.
It's much easier to measure COVID case rates and the distance between two desks than it is to quantify the invisible suffering of kids behind closed doors. Depression, anxiety, isolation, loss, grief, and feeling unsafe are issues that matter deeply to kids’ overall health and should factor into our risk calculations as parents. They’re also issues that the CDC needs to weave into its decision-making rubric for camps and school reopenings.
In the meantime, we can take stock of our own mental health. We can talk to our kids. We can ask them open-ended questions. We can talk less and listen more. We can offer safe, non-judgemental spaces to allow our kids to discuss how they feel. We can remind them about our collective progress and the vaccines’ ability to give us back our lives — even for those who aren’t yet eligible for the vaccine.
We can take care of our adult selves. We can mitigate our own fears by following the facts, reading beyond the headlines, and turning our phones and TVs OFF every now and then. (I’m taking my own medicine this weekend, I promise.)
Until we invest in our kids' and our own mental health, we can’t be truly healthy. At this watershed moment in the pandemic, it's time to view mental health as health.
Mental health matters. It's not just a hashtag.
Let’s also realize that risk is everywhere — that we cannot eliminate risk — and that health is always about trade-offs. Health is born out of knowing the facts, understanding our unique risks, and applying science to make healthy choices for ourselves and our kids.
Kids need us more than ever to model vaccine confidence, check our own anxiety, and offer hope for a brighter future.
To listen further, here’s my conversation with Megyn Kelly this week about weighing the harms of COVID-19 against the harms of pandemic restrictions themselves on kids.
And finally, pictured here is my mugshot from Morning Joe this morning — with Room Rater finally giving me a 10/10. RELIEF!!
That’s a WRAP for this week! I am taking Memorial Day weekend off to rest, relax, and relish time with my family. I CAN’T WAIT. I hope you get some time off, too. We’ve been through a lot. Taking stock — and taking a load off — is good for our health.
I will see you in a week. Until then, be well.