New research on child gun deaths adds heart-wrenching evidence to the growing pile of data suggesting that COVID-19 lockdowns and other restrictions had a devastating impact on society, especially on its most vulnerable members—children.
The spike in pediatric fatal injuries was driven by drugs and injuries involving firearms.
In 2021, when lockdowns and other COVID-19 restrictions were pervasive, more child homicides (2,279) and suicides (1,078) by gun were recorded than in any year since 1999, per the study.
Some see a clear causal link between the explosion in child gun deaths and pandemic lockdown policies, which other studies have linked to a variety of negative outcomes including delayed health treatments, learning loss, and mental health crises.
Guns and Lockdowns
Dr. Rebekah Mannix, senior associate in pediatrics at Boston Children’s division of emergency medicine and the lead author of the study, told USA Today that she sees mental health as a key factor behind the explosion in child deaths using firearms, to which children had more ready access when forced by government orders to stay locked down in their homes.“When you’re suicidal and depressed, as a kid, and impulsive–and you have access and you grab those lethal means–you have no opportunity to regret that attempt because that one attempt is fatal,” Dr. Mannix told the outlet.
Also, the gun death rate among children and teens, which is a measure that adjusts for changes in the overall population of the United States, jumped by 46 percent over the same period. In 2019, there were 2.4 firearm-related fatalities per 100,000 minors and, by pandemic year 2021, that had risen to 3.5 per 100,000.
In fact, both the number and rate of children and teenagers killed by gunfire in 2021 were higher than at any point since 1999 (at least, since that’s the earliest year of available data).
In an interview on ABC, Dr. Mannix said that, while the rise in child gun deaths started before COVID-19 hit, various factors associated with the pandemic made it worse.
“The increase in pediatric injury-related deaths preceded the COVID-19 pandemic, though the pandemic exacerbated numerous factors underlying this disturbing trend, including access to lethal means, such as firearms and opioids, the mental health crisis and structural racism,” Dr. Mannix told the outlet.
“In this way, the increase in deaths in 2020 to 2021 is an amplified trend that has been creeping up on us for the last decade,” she said.
The study comes as COVID-19 cases are on the rise, leading some institutions to reimpose mask mandates and sparking concerns of another tidal wave of COVID-19 restrictions.
‘Lockdowns May Claim 20 Times More Life Years Than They Save’
Some studies have identified lockdowns as contributing to jumps in suicides, mental health crises, learning loss, and delayed health treatments.“Suppression of ’misleading' opinions causes not only grave consequences for scientists’ moral compass; it prevents the scientific community from correcting mistakes and jeopardizes (with a good reason) public trust in science,” they wrote.
