TOUBLE WITH THE BASICS?: Vermont school children are reportedly lacking basic social skills as a result of the government-imposed pandemic lockdowns of 2020.
During his weekly press conference Tuesday, Gov. Phil Scott called on Vermonters to work to undo the harms caused by the social and economic shut down he imposed following the onset of COVID-19 in 2020.
“It’s important we continue to work to reverse the harms resulting from some of the mitigation measures that were put into place before we had all these tools,” Scott said. “This includes learning loss as well as social and emotional ramifications for our kids, a strain on our educators and healthcare workers, mental health and substance abuse that worsened during that pandemic, and the emotional turmoil that everyone has gone through after many, many months of uncertainty and fear.”
Big changes in education and healthcare during the past two years have had unintended consequences, the governor said.
“The fact is some of the steps that we took, from remote learning to deferred health care and a general lack of human connection, have been difficult to overcome. But we need to do whatever we can to reverse these impacts,” he said.
RELATED: Lockdowns did little or nothing to stop deaths from COVID-19, Johns Hopkins study shows
Jenney Samuelson, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Human Services, detailed new challenges her agency faces as a result of the shutdowns.
“These have impacted our mental health, substance use, housing, child and family well-being, and the stability of our healthcare system,” she said.
Samuelson highlighted three areas of concern for the agency going forward.
“First, we must address the increase in the incidents of substance use and acute mental health challenges that we are seeing day to day in our communities,” she said, adding that staff would be following the progress of select Vermonters who are dealing with mental health challenges.
With regard to stabilizing the healthcare system and its workforce, Samuelson said the agency would monitor the number of staffed hospital beds available at a variety of facilities. On the issue of housing, she said officials would “continue to track the number of households that are using emergency housing programs and their ability to move to more prominent housing solutions.”
Education Secretary Dan French
Also speaking at the media briefing was Secretary of Education Dan French, who discussed the need to spend one-time federal funds available through September 2024.
“The challenge before us now is to see if these one-time funds can not only address the immediate needs of students but also ensure they have a long-term impact on improving the quality of our education system,” he said.
French said about $280 million is yet to be spent for education.
“Part of the challenge is coordinating the use of state and local funds,” he said. “… Now every single school district in the state has an education recovery plan, and those plans are on each school district website.”
Immediate goals include countering the learning loss that occurred during the lockdowns, as well as addressing the social and emotional impacts that Vermont students encountered.
French also noted that staff shortages continue to be an issue across the state, saying “it’s critical that every school system have strong systems in place that will allow us to manage transitions of staff.”
The Scott administration’s concerns about the unintended consequences of the pandemic lockdown are not isolated. A new study reported by The Times in the UK suggests that children are having trouble talking properly — including, for some, speaking their own names properly.
“Children are arriving at school unable to say their own names or drink from cups, The Times Education Commission’s final report will reveal this week,” The Times reported.
The outgoing commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, Michael Schirling, participated in his last press conference for the state before taking a job at UVM. He shared kind words for his colleagues.
“Vermonters should know that they’ve got tremendous people working tirelessly for them every day,” he said.
Michael Bielawski is a reporter for True North. Send him news tips at bielawski82@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @TrueNorthMikeB.
It is hard to imagine a more difficult situation for a leader to manage than a pandemic by a hirtherto unknown extremely virulant pathogin. Governor Scott throught out the pandemic took heavy criticism from those on the left, who wanted him to do more and keep Vermont in a “State of Emergency” and those who felt he should do far less.
Governor Scott and his team with their press conferences open to news papers and reporters from around the state, provided a model of good communication, respect for others, and accountability. While some on both ends of the political spectrum continue to find fault with his actions, the vast majority of Vermonters have found his leadership on this issue to be exceptional. This is one of the reasons why Republicans have chosen him again and again to be their candidate for Governor and why Vermonters will re-elect him for a fourth term this fall.
Unlesss you can suck the mrna garbage back out of people’s arms, im afraid the damage is as done as your governance
“Liberal Logik”….The lead cheerleader for shutting down the USA – was Fauci……but it was just announced that he now has Covid….but that Fauci was – QUADRUPLE VACCINATED…..FOUR! And often Fauci was wearing DOUBLE MASKS..
So… four vaccinations, double masks????…and he STILL got covid? With that evidence, why shut down….covid is here to stay, and it will not go away anytime soon….the virus will just keep mutating to other types. So get over it and just live your life.
They thought they could shut down the US Economy like it was a light switch.
The government was wrong.. as usual.
I think the real lesson here is why the Founders intended for us to have small government.
They knew what all governments naturally do and set us up with the tools for a small one..to avoid where we are right now, under attack by the tyrannical control freaks.
When you hate broccoli, do you want more of it or less of it?
Yes, it really is that simplistic.
Let us pray that the people that believe in Big Gubbamint can see how bad it is and that we need less of it and not more of it.
WE The People are way better off solving things on our own, and having the power to do this.
Stop growing the government by looking to the government (which is now a friggan mafia) to solve our problems!!
When will people learn this?
They can’t even fix the potholes and you want them running our economy and managing our health?
Wake up for crying out loud!
Here is the true after 2 years of lies.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/06/msn-highlights-survey-showing-severe-covid-19-rare-unvaccinated-months-safe-effective-propaganda/
How can government know it alls ever be trusted again? Perhaps a few executive orders cancelling election law changes like ballot harvesting, mail in ballots to everyone and required voter ID would go a long way in rebuilding the trust factor. All passed fraudulently for the covid-19 lies being told by government. It’s called nulification and found in the Bill of Rights, article 10. Unconstitutional laws.
The Vermont Constitution: Article 8. [Elections to be free and pure; rights of voters therein]
That all elections ought to be free and without corruption, and that all voters, having a sufficient, evident, common interest with, and attachment to the community, have a right to elect officers, and be elected into office, agreeably to the regulations made in this constitution.
Did Phil Scott know Dr. Fauci tested positive for the coof when he stepped up to the podium or is this the flipped script received from his Master? He has the nerve to stand up there and yet again, tell Vermonters we must do more to help ourselves and our communities. After he called us racists, homophobes, community spreaders, anti-vaxxers, and other not-so-subtle insults. Phil Scott and his NWO brothern policies are clearly at fault, yet, it’s our responsibility to get us out of this mess? Those policies, the rhetoeric, the constant gaslighting for 30 months has made decent, law abiding Vermonters into second class citizens, destroyed livlihoods, destroyed families, destroyed reputations, destroyed our State. Clearly, the music to this chicken dance has changed and now we see Phil and Company perform the Curley Shuffle trying to dodge responsibility for the destruction they have caused. Dispicable.
The saddest part is the mindless libs will be even more supportive after this joke. It’s sad that he is the number one official in the state and even sadder that he supposedly represents the GOP.
The harm of universal mail-out ballots to anyone on the voter lists should be undone, as well as universal harvesting of those ballots.
These are totally undemocratic procedures set up because of COVID.
Ban ballot drop boxes to reduce fraud opportunities, as was done in Wisconsin. See URL
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/02/breaking-wisconsin-supreme-court-rules-ballot-dropboxes-not-legitimate-upcoming-april-election/
2) Ban universal mail-in voting to reduce fraud opportunities
3) Sanitize the registered voter lists, to eliminate counting votes of people who:
– Are dead
– Never existed (fictitious names on voter lists, as was done in Arizona)
– Moved out of state
– Are illegal aliens
– Are underage
– Are convicted felons
– Are registered, but almost never vote (a voter not voting 2 times in a row, should be stricken from voter lists; would need to reregister)
– Are out-of-state students, who should vote in their own states. See URLs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yprnrJlrsgc
https://skagitrepublicans.com/EmailFromArizonaTechWorkerAlleges35000VotesGiventoDemocratsinPimaCountyWitness
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/pima-county-election-data-analysis-by-dr-shiva-audit-team-based
4) Ban universal ballot harvesting by shady Democrat operatives, who are compensated at $10/ballot, then deposit the harvested ballots into unsupervised ballot drop boxes, mostly at night, with video cameras too far from the boxes so any images are legally useless. “Elected” Democrats would be seated, before any entity could find out what happened to have a proper court case, often several months later
5) All “vote counting centers” must be staffed with an equal number of Republican and Democrat vote counters and observers.
At present, in Democrat-controlled cities, “vote counting” is done primarily in Democrat-dominated, vote-counting centers, staffed by “trusted” Democrat operatives.
6) All voting must be in person, and only on election day, as in Germany and France
7) All votes should hand-counted (no machines of any kind), as in Germany and France
8) Require official photo IDs, such as:
1) US passports
2) Valid driver licenses with photo IDs
3) Social security numbers.
4) Birth certificates
5) US citizen certificates
NOTE: In Vermont, Town Clerks are, by law, not allowed to ask for any voter ID. All you have to do is sign an affidavit to be registered to vote. Vermont has universal ballot mail-out and universal ballot harvesting. Those should be rescinded.
These are the most egregious election system flaws, that enabled the Democrats to get “elected” in 2020, and likely in prior elections as well.
This THIRD WORLD sordidness of US elections has to end, before it will totally ruin the US
2000 Mules
Watched it with several friends. We all concurred. THERE WAS VOTER FRAUD! THEY THREW THE ELECTION!
James,
Dem/Prog used a stolen 2020 election (see 2000 MULES to see just one way how that was done) to take over the federal government and go on a $5.9 TRILLION PRINTING MONEY/DEFICIT SPENDING SPREE with money indiscriminately showered all over the US.
At the same time production of goods and services decreased, DUE TO LOCKDOWNS, which resulted in the classic INFLATION case of too much money chasing too few goods.
All the out-of-control brouhaha happened WAY BEFORE UKRAINE
That horse left the barn when you led by a incompetent government left the door
open by masking and making people take a jab they didn’t want and putting them
out of work…
To top it off you encouraged others to vote for the imbecile and thief you voted
for who mismanaged the whole episode of covid crud..
I sincerely hope this fat-faced, epic touch wraps his car around an oak tree sometime soon.
I’m not religious but god do I hate this guy. EFF HIM.
The Governor and Dr. Levine listened to the CDC, the FDA, and the WHO. All of these organizations are corrupt beyond belief. We have Covid cases and deaths now as high as any time before the vaccines, or higher.
It’s time for the Governor to open his eyes before any more harm is done. The vaccines are harming people and the truth is slowly dawning, until more and more people will see what a horrible mistake was made by idiots who rejected safe and effective treatments so they could push their rushed, experimental $$$ vaccines.
What happened is truly unbelievable, and the people who still think that everyone was doing the best they could need to understand that the people at the top deliberately suppressed safe and effective treatments, and that single act led to all the unforeseen consequences that we’re now facing. The damage to our children is immense.
Sweden’s children did fine with no masks. You’d think that’d be a wake-up call, but not for those blinded by the stupidity of the CDC, the FDA, and Fauci. We need to ‘build back better’ alright, but not until after we wipe this whole corrupt system clean. Our leaders cravenly hung on every word from Fauci who did nothing but deceive us. If they had simply paid attention to what other doctors were saying when they warned us of the path that Fauci and the CDC were leading us down, they would’ve seen what made most sense. How is it that all these other doctors saw, and our leaders didn’t? How is it that Governor DeSantis understood, but our Governor didn’t?
Yes, I’m angry. We all should be. https://pierrekory.substack.com/p/nursing-reports-from-the-front-lines?s=r
Jim1
I call balls and strikes with this Governor so I am impressed that he would outright admit that there HAVE BEEN harms resulting from lockdown measures. That statement is sure to bunch up the undies of some who would be continuing the lockdowns to this day…you know, the ones you see driving solo with the mask on…
Three words, “Safe and Effective”. Tell that to the millions who are suffering worldwide and those yet to encounter future health problems or death. The dark days are upon us. There is no way to take it back!
Great to hear this news. Now, when I will get back the career I lost due to unconstitutional lockdowns? Standing by. . .
All 3 comments are right on… Gee Scott sounds like that fake president in the WH, you know the senile one Biden. Blames everyone else for his own mistakes… Scott keeps getting re-elected, not from Republicans but from democrats as they know they can control him. When he vetoes a bill the democRats just laugh at him, slap his hand and override his veto…
When he first ran for Governor he made a lot of promises and never kept a single one of them. He lost a lot of votes since but the demons keep him in…He and his puppet masters are the ones who have destroyed Vermont.
So many good businesses are gone due to the harm he and his rats did.
Scott calls to “reverse the harms” resulting from COVID lockdown measures, is he
talking about the measures he put in place, running with all the hype and very little
science, yup those measures …………… A day late, and a dollar short, again !!
Not really ‘a dollar short’.
Yes, I know what you mean. But consider that the State and its school community received over $10 Billion, over the last year and a half or so, in federal funding based on these machinations. Anything for a buck. It’s always about the money. Never about the children or their families.
If Scott weren’t the Leftist liar he is and wouldn’t have boot licked the Commiecrats,he wouldn’t have to try to undue the harm to the people or Constitution,go pound sand Benedict.
Its not as if he listened to a wide array of expertise, now is it? No room in Scott’s admin for early treatment, to save 80% of lives with whatever you want to call it, covid, flu, what have you, 5 g poisoning, no room to look at the actual studies regarding masking, no room to look at the Great Barrington Declaration and its thousands of signers. NO he wants our help to undo what he did.????
Wow.