The kids are all right: We can learn about resilience from children in earlier pandemics

Throughout the COVID outbreak, community experts have warned of a potential "echo pandemic" of mental health challenges that may affect people worldwide following months of stress, social isolation, job loss and economic uncertainty.

Parents and caregivers have been especially worried about the long-term psychological impacts the pandemic may have on children. Canadian kids spent months at home while schools and daycares were closed, missing educational opportunities, unable to play with friends, and going without free meal programs their families might have relied on to keep them fed.

The reopening of schools this fall brought with it a new slate of concerns. On the one hand is the looming possibility that grade schools, petri dishes that they are, could become epicentres for the spread of the virus — outbreaks have already led to temporary school closures in at least five provinces.

On the other hand is the unfamiliarity of the new, pandemic-altered school environment.

The measures schools have put in place to keep children from transmitting COVID-19 vary from one jurisdiction to another. While none of the Atlantic provinces require masks in the classroom, the Toronto District School Board has made masks mandatory for students of all ages whenever they're indoors.

Some districts have day-on, day-off schooling, while others are operating on a regular schedule. Gym, band and choir are physically distanced, adapted or cancelled altogether.

Although these changes have been implemented for students' safety, they mark a major shift in children's day-to-day lives; one that's naturally frightening for parents and caregivers. It feels like a grand experiment that might affect children's emotional and cognitive development in ways we can't predict.

But all these pandemic precautions have been used in schools before, in very recent history, and the children who experienced them are now adults.

Revisiting SARS 

At the end of February 2003, SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, arrived in Hong Kong. SARS is a close relative of COVID-19. Like COVID-19, it was caused by a new coronavirus and spread by respiratory droplets.

Next to mainland China, Hong Kong was the region most severely affected by SARS. Some 1,755 residents of the small territory caught the virus, and 299 of them died.

Hong Kong's government closed schools for seven weeks while public health and medical professionals worked to contain the epidemic. When schools finally reopened, things were different.

Students from preschool up had to have their temperature taken first thing every morning, wear surgical masks throughout the day, wash their hands frequently, and keep a safe distance from their classmates. Plastic dividers were used at recess and lunch to separate children from each other while they were eating, and students weren't allowed to share toys or other supplies.

In other words, Hong Kong schoolchildren at that time experienced all of the restrictions that students in many places are facing right now.

One group of them, the children who were in kindergarten during the SARS outbreak, have a special reputation in Hong Kong because of the way both pandemics and politics interfered with milestone moments in their lives.

They were born in 1997, the year Hong Kong was handed over to China by the British.

Because of SARS, their kindergarten graduations were cancelled. Six years later, the swine flu pandemic cancelled their elementary school leaving ceremonies, too.

Tracking the so-called 'Cursed Generation'

In their senior year of high school, Hong Kong was supposed to begin holding democratic elections. The territory hadn't been a democracy under British rule, but part of the handover agreement with China included a gradual transition to a democratic system. Suddenly, though, the Chinese government announced that the planned elections weren't going to happen.

Because of this run of bad luck, kids born in 1997 started to jokingly refer to themselves as the "Cursed Generation."

LISTEN: Ainsley Hawthorn and Andrew Hawthorn host the latest instalment of their segment Apocalypse Then, from The St. John's Morning Show: 

Today, these young people are 23 years old. So where are they now? Did going to school under those strict pandemic guidelines and witnessing blow after blow to Hong Kong's autonomy foster a generation that is fearful, anxious, or withdrawn?

Not at all.

On the contrary, this is the age group that's been most active in the pro-democracy protests that have been unfolding in Hong Kong since last summer.

For more than a year, protesters have been demanding democratic rights and civil liberties, rallying by the thousands, organizing hunger and labour strikes and holding their own press conferences to push back against government messaging.

During the protests, young people have taken an object they used as children to prevent the spread of pandemics and have turned it into a symbol of democracy: the face mask. Fearing government reprisal against themselves and their families if they're identified, protesters have been using surgical masks to hide their identities.

This group of young adults embodies the incredible resilience children have in the face of catastrophes like pandemics.

Instead of becoming detached, they've grown into highly engaged adults who are taking a stand for their rights and for the future of their city.

Now they have a new perspective on their childhoods. Instead of feeling like victims of circumstance, many now see themselves as a group of people who've faced adversity but, because of the historic moment they find themselves in, have the chance to make real and lasting social change.

As a result, they've chosen a new nickname. The Cursed Generation now calls itself the Chosen Generation.

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