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A video of a toddler born in the year 2020 pressing inanimate objects in the hope of dispensing hand sanitizer recently went viral. Although bizarre, this is emblematic of the current hyper-precautionary health climate that Generation Alpha will be growing up in. The WHO s hygiene campaign, Save Lives: Clean your Hands to reduce COVID-19 infections has galvanised even the youngest in our populations to be mindful of self-hygiene.
Despite children being somewhat sheltered by the ravaging physical effects of the pandemic, (the Paediatric Intensive Care Audit Network (PICANet) found that out of the 71 under-18s who have needed intensive care, most have survived), we can t help but ask, will any of this have detrimental psychological effects in the long-term? Children are growing up in the cautionary age of the pandemic but also in the promising era of pioneering technology developments readily available at their fingertips.