A high school student in Louisiana gets exposed to COVID-19. He goes and gets a rapid test. It’s negative. The school district says he can return to school the next day and sit in a classroom that has no windows with 30 other kids. The student, though, is also a soccer player. By statewide rules, he is not allowed to play on an outdoor, open field for another week. A major part of his social life is just on hold because two policies don’t match up, and it’s hurting one of his passions.

In New York, schools are making kids sit on the floor to eat lunch.

Earlier I deleted a tweet about my kid's school because I felt like I hadn't done enough to confirm what my daughter was telling me, but now I have. At least one NYC public school is indeed making kids sit on the floor to eat lunch inside, for covid reasons.

— Michelle Goldberg (@michelleinbklyn) December 8, 2021

And in Oregon, kids are forced to sit outside in the cold to eat lunch while sitting on buckets.

CHILD ABUSE: Kindergartners are forced to eat lunch outside in 40 degree weather at Capitol Hill Elementary School in Portland, Oregon.

They sit on buckets to social distance from their classmates. pic.twitter.com/KqFcliTFYf

— Katie Daviscourt🇺🇸 (@KatieDaviscourt) December 8, 2021

This, despite the clear data that shows children in school are among the least likely to be affected by COVID and are rarely hospitalized by (much less dying from) the virus.

Despite the data we have, and despite the clear evidence that we have on the effects of the pandemic on schools, our education system still favors what amounts to psychological torture on children in response to the virus.

Many of you have children who have been way more negatively impacted by COVID-19 policies than by COVID-19 itself. Some of you have children who did get the virus, but saw no complications. Yes, there are some children who got seriously ill and some who died, and every death is a tragedy. But those circumstances were rare, and comorbidities are a major factor, much like they are in adults.

But when policies are inconsistent, and bordering on the harmful, where kids are concerned, people will dismiss concerns about the virus.

The problem with schools remains two-fold. The first is that teachers are reacting to the virus out of fear. There are a lot of teachers who personally know someone who got seriously ill or died from the virus, and those teachers have to turn around and deal with dozens of children in a classroom setting every day. They are terrified of getting the virus through all this human contact and they would prefer to go overboard to not get it rather than run anywhere close to risking getting it.

School systems and teachers’ unions, meanwhile, see parents supporting them less and less and so they want to tighten their grip. Even the major health organizations have said that masking and mitigation issues should not interfere with the education of the students, but that hasn’t stopped the unions from being part of the wildly irresponsible school closures in 2020 and 2021, nor did it stop school systems from implementing harsh mitigation efforts that had no basis in science. Hell, some are outright vaccinating kids without parental consent.

When the left and the blue checks on Twitter complain about people not trusting the government or the media over the coronavirus, I laugh. This is exactly why no one trusts them. The treatment of children has been inconsistent to the point of being harmful, and there is no sign it’s really getting any better in many of the places around the country where the left is cracking down hard on the virus. Much like Dr. Anthony Fauci now saying you should demand the vaccination status of your family before sitting down to Christmas dinner, people aren’t just tuning this out. They are actively fighting back against this insanity.

And… I don’t blame them. The government’s response, education’s response, and even the media’s response have done nothing but try to divide us and frighten us into compliance. I think you should get the vaccine. I am considering the booster. But I don’t think you need to be forced into doing either of those things and I damn sure don’t believe you should force them on children or make kids have to sit outside on buckets in 40-degree weather while not letting them talk to each other.

This is abusive, dystopian behavior.