By Ian Miller at Brownstone dot org.

In what we now understand were completely theatrical attempts to control the Covid-19 pandemic, experts demanded and politicians mandated all sorts of intrusive policies. Mask mandates were one of the most obvious. School closures. Lockdowns. Curfews. Capacity limits. Fear campaigns. The list is and was endless. And unfortunately the public willingly complied with all of them.

On and on they went, for years in some cases. But in their discussions of those useless policies, one thing they always, without fail, ignored was the ancillary cost.

Sure, you can mandate masks, but what does are the effects for those who are forced to wear them? What does it cost in terms of lost social cohesion, normalizing anti-social behavior? What are the trade-offs that result from closing schools, from forcing businesses to shut down, or locking down society?

Are there harms to physical, emotional, or verbal development?

These are important questions that were completely ignored by those in power during the pandemic, because they were inconvenient to the architects of the covidiocy.

But new research is out confirming yet again that the collective absurdity of Covid policies caused immense damage and permanent harm to a generation of children. For nothing.

Covid Shutdowns, Masks Stopped Childhood Development

A new study was released this month tracking the developmental outcomes among young children growing up during the pandemic period, aged between 1-5. This study was a systematic review; essentially an examination of over a dozen studies on childhood development for those who started learning and growing in the era of masks and mandates.

Sure enough, of the 17 studies included that covered how developmental outcomes unfolded during the pandemic, "almost all" of them reported a "negative association" between the Covid years and educational and emotional development.

"Among the 17 studies that reported developmental outcomes, almost all reported a negative association between the pandemic and developmental domains screened," the study says.

It wasn't just one issue either; children saw significant "negative associations" in multiple areas in 15 of the 17 included studies.

"Fifteen out of 17 studies showed negative associations in several domains (behaviour, communication, language, gross motor, fine motor, problem solving, emotional, and personal-social skills), measured with ASQ-3 and ASQ SE-2 (Ages and Stages questionnaire)."

Children who were born and started growing up during the era of Covid restrictions fell behind in virtually every single important area of development.

They were worse behaved.

Worse at communicating, worse at learning languages.

Worse at their physical capabilities.

Worse at solving problems.

Worse at handling emotional situations and growing their capability for social interaction.

Good thing none of that's important for growing into well-adjusted, productive adults, right?

Lest there be any doubt as to the explanation for this catastrophic decline in childhood growth, every single study that used the Ages and Stages questionnaire found that pandemic-era children fared worse than those born prior to Covid shutdowns. Every single study.

"…all studies that used the ASQ-3 and ASQ SE-2 found at least one deficit in developmental domains when comparing pandemic cohorts to pre-pandemic cohorts," the study says.

Remarkable. We set back a generation of children in every important area of learning and physical and social growth. All because prolifically incompetent or even in some cases willfully malicious adults were too self-obsessed to listen to those warning of side effects and ancillary harms.

Among 3-4 year olds, those who should be approaching the start of traditional schooling and accelerating in terms of verbal, motor and cognitive skills, the effects were even more pronounced. While there were just two studies that examined neurocognitive assessment based on an early learning syst...