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May 20, 2020 - Dennis Prager Show
09:37
Dr. Hamilton: The Effect of the Lockdown on Kids ⎜The Dennis Prager Radio Show
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Dr. Hamilton, it is a joy to have you.
The article is up at DennisPrager.com.
It is about the effects of the lockdown on kids and his begging people, as a doctor, as a pediatrician, that kids be allowed to go to summer school.
And I tell you, I read your article.
And, you know, well, you probably know my position.
I think it's been a terrible, horrible mistake, and the after effects will be with us for years.
So tell us in a nutshell what the effects of the quarantine have been on children.
And again, you're answering as a pediatrician.
Yes.
Well, first of all, Dennis, let me say it is a great pleasure to be here with you.
You forgot to mention, by the way, in your introduction how much I esteem you.
Dennis, and how much my wife Leslie esteems you and loves you.
And I have read both of your Bible commentaries, Exodus and Genesis, and I'm actually looking forward to the book of Numbers, which I never thought I would ever say in my entire life, but I am.
So, Dennis, it is a great...
Great joy to be here.
Let me just say, I'm very flattered, obviously, but I wanted you to know it would be hilarious if I introduced a guest.
Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Robert Hamilton, piece of the Wall Street Journal today, and I want you to know he and his wife both esteem me.
The left would pick that up and have a field day.
Well, Dennis, I'll tell you, if you ever have me on your show again, please, that will be the introduction, okay?
Yeah, fair enough.
So, listen, I wrote this article because children are the demographic out there who are being overlooked.
And I'm talking about, when you say children, we're talking about age zero, newborns.
To age 18. Now, that includes a lot of teenagers in there, too, right?
And so this category of people, and you alluded to this at the end of your hour, Dennis, they're really not being addressed.
And this lockdown is, I think, unmerited for kids for several reasons.
Number one is that the COVID-19 infection is actually turning out to be a relatively benign I mean,
we're not talking even deaths, just in the category of having it?
Yes, those are the people who had it.
Now, that's a good point.
I mean, the number of children who actually passed, who have died from COVID-19, I'm telling you, and I'm not trying to be dramatic or anything, I'm telling you the truth, it is really, you can count them hardly on two hands.
And these are children who may have, you know, secondary, what we call comorbidities, children who have other issues going on.
All that to say is that I think this infection thankfully, and I mean that from my heart thankfully, very unlike the flu which happened 100 years ago and actually other flu epidemics which have had high mortality and morbidity in children, young children, this infection for whatever reason is kind of they're kind of getting a pass.
And this is great news.
So I think that, you know, the The reality that, you know, we're locking these kids down, I think, is quite unnecessary.
And certainly, it's beginning to have an impact.
I mean, I can tell you a couple of things, a couple of areas.
Number one, in education.
They're not getting the education that they really deserve.
We've had schools now close for quite a while.
And, of course, they're trying to do education online.
I want you to know, Dennis, and I know many of these people, This is a big effort, and I applaud and I salute the teachers and administrators of our schools who are trying to do the very best they can with online education.
But as I mentioned in my article, literally, when LA Unified School Districts shut down...
Literally, they lost 15,000 students.
I'm talking about high school kids now.
They vanished.
They never did check in with the schools after they closed it down.
Another 40,000 high school students, which is one third of their student body, have not been in contact with their teachers on a daily basis.
Dennis, this is not education.
Wow.
Yeah.
You also write about...
I want to get the article up here.
You mentioned that children indoors for prolonged periods proves to have a negative influence on their psychological health.
You want to comment on that?
Absolutely.
This is a big issue, and people are talking about this all over the Internet, all over my professional publications.
I mean, depression is setting in, stress.
Certainly, they feel that sense of despair.
They feel fear.
They're actually being exposed to higher levels of domestic violence, things that happen in homes.
You know, when you drive by a home, you don't know everything that's going on in that home.
And kids are seeing things that, yes, happen, but they're seeing more of it because people are drinking more, they're smoking more dope, they're doing a lot of things, and they're seeing things, you know, the calls to the hotlines have literally exploded.
And finally, and this is the real sad thing, suicide is beginning to happen, especially in this older group of high school kids.
Realize, Dennis, that the high school environment, the school environment for many young people is a point of lightness, of brightness, of happiness.
They get together with their friends.
They're not having that anymore.
It's true.
I mean, I remember high school as simply fun.
That is my memory.
Yes.
And there's a time to have that in life, like Ecclesiastes, a time to laugh, a time to cry.
That's a time to laugh.
What do you think, I don't remember seeing this in your article, I may have missed it or you didn't address it, and that is, because I know it from my son, Who is totally happy for his young kids to have playtime with other young kids.
But the number of parents who will allow their kids to play with other kids is very small.
Yes.
Well, we have been brain damaged.
We're afraid.
We're all afraid.
And this has been something that, you know, the collateral damage, if you will.
I did something probably illegal a week ago.
I took two of my grandchildren, and I drove them over to Cobra City, where another three of my grandchildren live, and they're similar age.
And we had a day at the park.
Now, they have not seen each other for two or three months.
And I've got to tell you, Dennis, the only word I can think of is they were hungry for each other.
It was so delightful to watch them embrace each other and run around and laugh and play.
You know, it was really a moment.
And I will tell you that we're denying our kids the pleasure of being children.
So we need to, you know, I think it's unwarranted.
And I think we need to really get our kids out of the lockdown and back into the culture we need to normalize their lives.
I wrote a column this week on the pursuit of safe.
Yes.
You deal with parents a great deal.
Has this become a sort of religion?
Well, they call it safetyism.
And yes, it has.
I mean, this concept of safe, well, the world has never been safe, Dennis.
And if, you know, I tell people, okay, we will, you know, we'll...
We'll survive, you know, we'll keep in our little caves and we'll be in the quarantine forever and they'll get a vaccine and we'll finally, after a year or two, okay, we'll come out of our cave and guess what will happen?
We'll get hit by a car and killed, okay?
So, you know, the reality is this concept of safety and safetyism is fallacious and we all know that and I think we all know that in our heart.
See, folks, this is one of the examples of a doctor with wisdom.
And I've talked about this a lot on the air.
No group has more wise people than any other group.
But you're an example of a wise doctor.
Just tell everybody the name of your book.
I want them to know about it.
Okay.
Well, thank you, Dennis.
I wrote a book called Seven Secrets of the Newborn.
And it talks about babies and actually goes through the entire first year of life.
And so that's my book.
Yes, and worthy.
And his article is up at DennisPrager.com.
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