Sharjah24 – AFP: Anxiety, depression, self-harm and even suicide: a growing number of children in the United States are struggling with their mental health during the coronavirus pandemic, doctors, teachers, parents and the government are all warning.
Millions of students have been attending school virtually since March last year, spending hours in front of computers, without playing games or chatting with friends in person and missing out on sports and face-to-face art or music classes.
"There's a lot of loneliness for me and other teens," said Sarah Frank, an 18-year-old from Florida, who has not left home since March because she lives with relatives considered high-risk if they contract Covid-19.
Frank co-founded the State of Mind Project in July, a website with mental and physical health tips for teenagers.
Deanna Caputo is a psychologist and mother of two children who says she sees signs of depression in her 10-year-old son since his class in Arlington, Virginia became virtual in March.
A recent CDC report said that schools are safe if proper precautions are taken, such as wearing a mask and social distancing.
But many teachers' unions resist going back to classrooms. In Chicago, the mayor ordered elementary schools to reopen but unions refused, demanding vaccinations for all teachers and threatening a strike.
Teenage suicides have been on the rise in the United States for a decade.
There is no data for 2020 yet but numbers from Clark County in Nevada, which includes Las Vegas, are causing alarm.
Nineteen students have taken their own lives there since March, more than double the number for the same period the previous year.
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