Just been told that a 13 year old in the year above my kid at his school has topped himself.
Also just been told that the husband of a teacher at my younger kid's school died today of COVID (50 year old).
Shit is getting real.
Ugh.

What has the 13 year old topping himself got to do with Covid 19? Still very sad to hear of someone that young resorting to such a thing.
I have a few mates in the USA from other interests and they said restrictions now barely exist. Everyone does what they want and "Party Hard" as they say. Their positive rates per 100k people are less than us and we are stuck in the fucking house. .
That isn't true at all - at least where we are.
We have been in some form of lock down for a year. It has varied around the US by State and by County - where we are the restrictions have been full on - far worse and longer than the UK.
Schools are not back fully yet (since March last year) and half the kids are still doing remote learning full time - the other half are back just 3 half days a week on site (and that only started just before Christmas).
Another 13 year old killed themselves at another school about 5 miles away last week. One is highly unusual - and now we have two.
The general thinking and messaging are that these are both linked to isolation and the mental health issues caused by it (there is a strong suspicion that abuse of all forms has spiked while families are locked down too).