Juno News - The kids are still locked down

00:00:00.000 as adults across canada return to doing the things they love there is the assumption that

00:00:09.540 kids will be doing exactly the same but not so fast there's a lot of reasons to be concerned

00:00:15.780 that as restrictions are easing for adults in some sense life ain't gonna get any easier for

00:00:21.900 kids even though pediatricians have been pointing out for a while now that thankfully coronavirus

00:00:26.320 hits kids less severely than it does adults and in many ways influenza is more severe in kids

00:00:33.000 than coronaviruses so what am i talking about here well we've got adults all across canada

00:00:37.980 looking around the world and saying i'm ready to get back to life either because they're seeing

00:00:42.820 what's happening in places like singapore that says we got to learn to live with covid they're

00:00:47.140 no longer even producing the daily case counts or we see what's happening in the united states and

00:00:52.100 whether it's democrat republican north south wherever they're finding ways to get back to

00:00:56.860 life and we watch all those sporting events and other large gatherings in the u.s we go why can't

00:01:01.360 we do that here so we've got people who've been saying that for months now people who've never

00:01:05.700 supported the lockdowns in canada but i think even people who have supported the lockdowns even the

00:01:10.640 hardest measures are now kind of saying all right what's the big deal let's get moving they wanted

00:01:15.840 vaccines they've now got access to both their doses and those canadians are saying all right

00:01:20.380 let's reopen even though the officials keep moving the goalposts well i think there'll be a certain

00:01:25.380 point where hopefully fingers crossed you just can't move the goalposts anymore and more and more

00:01:30.220 regular folks are going to say all right let's reopen and that will be adults speaking up for

00:01:35.080 themselves making their voices heard but what about the kids the problem is the restrictions on our kids

00:01:41.080 lives have never added up they've never made sense we've had pediatric experts saying don't close the

00:01:47.560 schools and yet they have shut them down pretty much all across canada credit to british columbia

00:01:53.100 which has always said look we got to go easier on our kids elementary school age kids have largely

00:01:58.580 not needed to wear masks even indoors and they've hardly ever shut down the schools in bc but there's a

00:02:04.620 lot of concern in places like ontario that things actually aren't going to be back to normal for kids

00:02:10.360 in september we hear teachers unions saying oh we've always supported schools being reopened just so long as

00:02:16.640 they're safe and the things they're talking about now in july about making schools safe are really

00:02:22.320 massive overhauls that the evidence doesn't suggest we need oh we've got to completely redo the ventilation

00:02:28.260 systems and yes we've got to change the class sizes and more and more hurdles that you go i don't know if

00:02:33.600 these are going to be in place by september and they're not needed because schools were safe as it was

00:02:39.440 prior to a discussion of all of these things back in previous waves of this virus when many pediatricians

00:02:45.640 pediatricians said come on reopen the schools and yet they're putting up barriers to the schools

00:02:50.880 being reopened in september you know i'll never forget walking by a playground and seeing and in

00:02:56.960 ontario they have rules where kids need to wear masks outdoors during recess even though in bc they

00:03:02.500 didn't have many of the kids wearing them indoors and i'll never forget walking past a playground i was

00:03:07.180 just walking along the sidewalk and i happened to be passing the school and there are these kids kind of

00:03:11.600 slumped down and defeat they had their masks just around their chins not their faces covered they

00:03:16.260 were really upset teacher walking by or whoever the person was the the lunch supervisor and they

00:03:21.700 walked by and said hey kids don't forget put those masks back on put them back on right now and the

00:03:25.620 kids gonna okay fine and they put them back on i've already seen some children's advocates pediatric

00:03:31.360 experts lamenting the fact that in the city of ottawa they have outdoor summer camps going on right now

00:03:37.660 in the summer where coronavirus cases are crashing all across the country the numbers are so low kids

00:03:43.740 socially distanced in a park outdoors wearing masks small kids they're like grade one sk whatever they

00:03:51.040 are little kids wearing masks outdoors at the same time when we've got other provinces that are

00:03:56.980 completely lifting their mask mandates where masks are actually voluntary they're not mandatory in certain

00:04:02.760 parts of canada so bottom line don't just assume that because things are easing for adults that things

00:04:08.440 are going to be even better for kids because the truth is they need advocates right now they need

00:04:13.400 their parents they need adults to stand up and fight for them

Juno News - July 03, 2021

The kids are still locked down

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