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America's Pandemic Orphans Are Slipping Through the Cracks
America’s Pandemic Orphans Are Slipping Through the Cracks
A new plan to help them will likely be too little, too late.
Losing a parent may be one of the most destabilizing events of the human experience. Orphans are at increased risk of substance abuse, dropping out of school, and poverty. They are almost twice as likely as non-orphans to die by suicide, and they remain more susceptible to almost every major cause of death for the rest of their life.
Because of the pandemic, some 200,000 American children now face these stark odds. Even after two years that have inured the country to the carnage of the coronavirus, the scope of the loss is so staggering that it can be hard to comprehend: Caregiver loss during the pandemic is now responsible for one out of every 12 orphans under the age of 18, and in every public school in the United States, on average two children have lost a caregiver to the pandemic. COVID-19 case counts rise and fall, but “orphanhood doesn’t come and go. It is a steadily rising slope, and the summit is still out of sight,” Susan Hillis, the co-chair of the Global Reference Group on Children Affected by COVID-19, told me. “It’s not like you’re an orphan today and then you’re recovered in two weeks
Even if orphans face an immense set of challenges, their fate isn’t sealed: For decades, researchers have known that programs that tap into children’s extraordinary resilience can help orphans overcome the unthinkable, especially if kids get help in the immediate aftermath of a death. And yet, so far, the plight of pandemic orphans has not proved to be much of a pressing issue in the United States. No law or executive order has provided any resources specifically for pandemic orphans, even as Congress and the White House have spent trillions of dollars to help Americans get through this crisis. And while a memorandum issued by President Joe Biden yesterday promises that the administration will develop a plan for orphans, it’s poised to be too little, too late. “It really doesn’t outline any plan or commitment,” RachIel Kidman, a social epidemiologist at Stony Brook University, told me.
And the inaction goes deeper than that: With a few exceptions, even the parts of the country most inclined toward action don’t seem to be doing much to help these kids. “No one has even established a system for figuring out who these children are,” Hillis said. The pandemic’s orphanhood crisis matters most for orphans, but it also matters for the rest of us. If America can’t do anything to help the children most profoundly affected by COVID, what hope is there to make any sort of long-lasting changes as we try to leave the pandemic behind?
Snip
A new plan to help them will likely be too little, too late.
Losing a parent may be one of the most destabilizing events of the human experience. Orphans are at increased risk of substance abuse, dropping out of school, and poverty. They are almost twice as likely as non-orphans to die by suicide, and they remain more susceptible to almost every major cause of death for the rest of their life.
Because of the pandemic, some 200,000 American children now face these stark odds. Even after two years that have inured the country to the carnage of the coronavirus, the scope of the loss is so staggering that it can be hard to comprehend: Caregiver loss during the pandemic is now responsible for one out of every 12 orphans under the age of 18, and in every public school in the United States, on average two children have lost a caregiver to the pandemic. COVID-19 case counts rise and fall, but “orphanhood doesn’t come and go. It is a steadily rising slope, and the summit is still out of sight,” Susan Hillis, the co-chair of the Global Reference Group on Children Affected by COVID-19, told me. “It’s not like you’re an orphan today and then you’re recovered in two weeks
Even if orphans face an immense set of challenges, their fate isn’t sealed: For decades, researchers have known that programs that tap into children’s extraordinary resilience can help orphans overcome the unthinkable, especially if kids get help in the immediate aftermath of a death. And yet, so far, the plight of pandemic orphans has not proved to be much of a pressing issue in the United States. No law or executive order has provided any resources specifically for pandemic orphans, even as Congress and the White House have spent trillions of dollars to help Americans get through this crisis. And while a memorandum issued by President Joe Biden yesterday promises that the administration will develop a plan for orphans, it’s poised to be too little, too late. “It really doesn’t outline any plan or commitment,” RachIel Kidman, a social epidemiologist at Stony Brook University, told me.
And the inaction goes deeper than that: With a few exceptions, even the parts of the country most inclined toward action don’t seem to be doing much to help these kids. “No one has even established a system for figuring out who these children are,” Hillis said. The pandemic’s orphanhood crisis matters most for orphans, but it also matters for the rest of us. If America can’t do anything to help the children most profoundly affected by COVID, what hope is there to make any sort of long-lasting changes as we try to leave the pandemic behind?
Snip
More at link: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/04/covid-orphan-kids-lost-parent/629436/
6 replies
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Fuck Facebook and Fox News for bringing this on. 
