School closures further isolate a lonely generation – and the effect on children could be disastrous Promised online resources to “boost mental health support” are no substitute for what schools offer children: friends, exercise, purpose and safeguarding. We don’t actually know yet if suicide rates have increased as a consequence of lockdown. Sometimes major crises can have the opposite effect, with societies “pulling together” in the face of adversity and, in the process, drawing unhappy and marginalised people into the fold. But it is quite possible that this will not be true of the Covid pandemic, since it is difficult to “pull together” in conditions of enforced solitude.