Campaign strives to send children to school in 2022

The campaign wants no disruptive social distancing for kids and no emergency-use jabs. Representation pic

To infuse new hope and bring back normalcy for children in the New Year, a diverse group of individuals have launched a campaign. The initiative - Happy 2022, Happy for Kids too - primarily focuses on the immediate resumption of physical classes for all children.

Started by parents, teachers, educationists, doctors, epidemiologists and many citizens, the campaign's slogan reads "Join the Chain-for-Children's-Cheer". Its backers say children have been deprived of too many activities that are integral to their lives amid the Covid pandemic. They have also demanded no disruptive social distancing for kids, no emergency-use jabs for kids and no Covid testing for asymptomatic kids. The campaign aims to put together interviews with children, parents and doctors and scientific material to educate the public on the harms being caused to children as part of Covid response.

In just a day after its launch, the campaign received 180 signatures, including that of eminent epidemiologists like Dr Amitav Banerjee, head, Department of Community Medicine at Dr DY Patil Medical College, Pune, Dr Jayaprakash Muliyil, chairman of Scientific Advisory Committee of National Institute of Epidemiology, and Dr Arvind Singh Kushwaha, Department of Community Medicine, AIIMS, Nagpur. It will continue till January 26, Republic Day.

"It is a very simple point that children have been suffering the most throughout the pandemic, although this does not affect them a lot. They are losing out on their playful childhood that we all enjoyed," said Bhaskaran Raman, professor, Dept of CSE, IIT-Bombay, who has joined the campaign and has been working to keep this debate alive. The campaign, Raman said, will educate and inform parents that they need to demand the reopening of schools.

Another signatory, Dr Amitav Banerjee, an epidemiologist with 3 decades of experience in the Armed Forces who is now with Pune-based DY Patil Medical College, said, "As of today, data indicates that 80 per cent of those below 18 years of age already have the antibodies. This natural herd immunity is considered 13 times stronger than the vaccine. In this case, what is the point of keeping them away from schools and other regular life? We have not really saved children by keeping schools closed."

More details about the campaign are available on https://happy22kids.org.