The Public Health Agency yesterday said it will fund new research on the effects of COVID on Canadian children. It follows an earlier report that school closures and lockdowns were more disruptive than the coronavirus..“With regards to the impacts, this is something we are still looking at,” Candice St-Aubin, vice president of the agency, testified at the House of Commons health committee. “This is something the Public Health Agency is taking seriously.”.According to Blacklock's Reporter, St-Aubin said there is "much we still need to know about the impacts of the pandemic" on all Canadians..“With Statistics Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Offord Centre for Child Studies, the Agency is co-funding a new cycle of the Canadian Health Survey on children and youth to assess these impacts," she said..Tammy Clifford, vice president of the Institutes of Health Research, said the mental health impacts of closures and lockdowns were far-reaching. “Impacts of the pandemic on our children have been substantial and complex,” said Clifford..The Public Health Agency in a 2021 report said school closures and lockdowns “significantly altered Canadian families’ daily life,” especially boys and girls with disabilities. A total 43% of parents surveyed said they were “very” or “extremely” concerned about their children’s mental health..“The vast majority of parents, about nine in ten, reported their children engaged in screen time at home either daily or almost every day,” said the report..“While a large proportion of parents reported concerns about their children’s screen time, more parents – close to three quarters – who have children with cognitive, behavioural, or emotional disabilities reported they were ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ concerned with the amount of screen time their children engaged in.”.More than third of parents said they were also “very” or “extremely” worried about their children’s physical inactivity due to closures of playgrounds and loss of school sports..“More than half of the parents, 59%, reported they were very or extremely concerned about their children’s school year success,” wrote staff. The findings were based on Statistics Canada questionnaires with 32,000 parents of children 14 and younger..Jocelyn Voisin, assistant deputy health minister, yesterday told the health committee the pandemic also had immediate impacts on children’s well-being. “The pandemic has caused the cancellation or delay of almost 700,000 medical procedures including for children,” said Voisin..Conservative MP Dr. Stephen Ellis (Cumberland-Colchester, N.S.) questioned how pediatricians would eliminate the backlog of procedures for young patients. “We know there is a huge shortage of practitioners,” said Ellis. “How are we ever going to make up these medical procedures that are missing?”
