‘If she’s so scared of Covid, she should just stay at home!’

This is just one of many things said to me, or about me, through the pandemic.

If only it was that simple.

I was days away from turning 13 when the first Lockdown in Northern Ireland was announced. The pandemic has impacted, and continues to impact, my entire teenage years.

During the lockdown periods I felt safe and cared for as everyone was in a similar situation and people understood how vulnerable some people can be to infection, like my little sister. There was better understanding about families like mine. My sister and I were able to complete our school work and we had access to outdoor space to still get out and about safely.

‘I feel ventilated, so we’re going to close the window.’

When schools reopened we were told school was safe and that there were mitigations, but I was aware that these were inappropriate and poorly implemented, like mask wearing in ‘communal spaces’ and not in classrooms. I was nervous while in school, but looking back this was to be the time I felt most comfortable with in person learning because as time went on there was less and less consideration of the risks I was aware of. The lack of effective messaging and proper information available greatly impacted how people responded to the mitigations put in place.

‘I forgot what your face looked like.’

When I began my GCSE’s and did a mix of extended homeschooling and in person learning as mitigations were beginning to be lifted. During this period, which my family saw as necessary due to ineffective mitigations and high rates of infection, we tried to keep in contact with the school. This was made more difficult when, after contacting two separate teachers in one day, the head of pastoral care told me to stop contacting my teachers as it was seen as extra work for them and the school had “a duty of care to the staff”.

I continued to wear a mask, carried a small HEPA filter with me and advocated for legislative requirements such as windows to be open to provide natural ventilation. I often received push-back from my peers and staff, while becoming one of the few, and eventually the only, child wearing a mask.

‘No wonder she’s being bullied.’

I became a target for bullying. I was harassed, sworn at, verbally abused, physically intimidated and was targeted on social media, which only worsened as time went on despite explaining our circumstances and the risk to my little sister. I was deliberately coughed at and had windows slammed shut if I dared to open them myself. I received comments like ‘you and your sister should kill yourselves’, and ‘I don’t care if your sister dies’. I was devastated.

‘There’s been another complaint’

‘If you touch that f***ing window…….’

A group of parents on a social media page would campaign against me having a window open in my classrooms, I was regularly reported to school because of this and the group admin eventually had to step in and turn off comments reminding them they were targeting an individual child in the school community. They would blame me for any open windows, including in year groups that weren’t mine or teachers’ rooms I was never in, as well as complaining that their children were in classrooms that were colder than legislation allowed for.  It eventually got to the point that during one class in particular the principal had to come round with a thermometer to prove to the students that the classroom was an appropriate temperature. I was repeatedly removed from classrooms because of the open window and my classmates’ reactions, often being told beforehand that my teacher didn’t want me to feel like I was being ‘hounded out’. No one else was ever treated this way for just opening a window but I guess I also looked different, I wore a mask and stood out, I wasn’t understood.

‘The Chinese released the virus to make TikTok more popular!’

I was regularly subjected to school staff’s personal opinions and forced to share medical information about my family members to justify wearing a mask, masks don’t work, my family member/friend/neighbour has the same conditions as your sister and they don’t still wear a mask, why do you feel you need to? On one occasion, I was obviously and deliberately excluded from school photographs in a music class, the only child excluded from the group of eight and the only one wearing a mask. No explanation was ever given for this. I had a staff member ask, ‘what would you do if someone ripped the mask off your face’ and was told the bullies would ‘move on to someone else eventually’. All because I wanted to protect my little sister from a virus that has the potential to cause her serious harm. I felt trapped by the power imbalance. I regularly had to deal with staff’s responses being based on their own opinions rather than facts. They challenged and questioned my reasons why instead of first considering their responsibilities to protect and support me.

‘The bullies will move on to someone else eventually.’

My parents and I tried to talk to the staff about the issues I was facing with my peers. We had regular meetings with school representatives, we raised it with the board of governors and eventually, we threatened to report one particular child to the police for continued harassment. They did stop but this didn’t put off the others and it wasn’t only the kids in school that treated me this way.

  ‘I don’t know why she is so upset!’

None of the issues that we raised were properly dealt with. I felt a lack of empathy or understanding for my family’s circumstances and braced myself every day to go to school. It didn’t stop and I was eventually completely ostracised.

School became terrifying for me.

I made the decision to leave school mid-way through my A levels.

‘Covid is so 2020, catch yourself on!’

I have and continue to be targeted in public when wearing a mask. Some people stare and make comments to themselves or out loud to me, grown men have approached me and yelled in my face and I have been videoed just out with my friend being a typical teenager. I’m sure a lot of people would have had the occasional comment before Freedom Day, however this period of time seems to have emboldened people. So many people feel like they have the right to tell us how to live our lives with no knowledge or understanding of why we make the choices we do.

‘Let’s talk about lockdowns and the impact on children.’

I have heard a lot about the mental health impact of lockdowns on children and young people but the mental health impact on young people in clinically vulnerable families is rarely, if ever acknowledged.

You never hear of how difficult it is to be put in a position of having to advocate for ventilation or defend yourself for continuing to wear a mask, and educate yourself of the ongoing risks as there are few reliable sources of information now. There is no acknowledgement of t

he toll on your mental health of carrying the burden of being a risk to your vulnerable family member, risk assessing every room you walk in to, meeting new people and wondering how they are going to react to my mask or being a visual reminder of a pandemic everyone wants to forget. Children should never have to carry that burden of always justifying their choices or be put in that position of having to advocate for clean air/ventilation.

We need to be learning from everything that has happened the past 5 years and taking action now, we need focus on clean air in classrooms and public spaces, we need our schools to be safe for all children and the staff that work there.

I have had to grow up very quickly. I have had to learn to navigate the world while still trying my best to keep my sister safe and advocate for her health and mine. We were told we should protect the most vulnerable. Sadly, that didn’t last very long. My sister is 13 and still extremely vulnerable to Covid-19. Outside of my own family who is protecting her now?