The many and multifaceted ways coronavirus is harming children

From restricting access to food to impacting mental health, experts warn we must act to help youngsters, writes Andrew Buncombe

A youngster with a sign thanks medical workers in New York (Getty)

We were told not to worry about the children.

The coronavirus was not going to harm them. It the was the elderly and infirm we needed to be concerned about. It was they who needed to stay inside.

And indeed, the elderly and those with underlying health conditions were among those first laid low by the disease. It was people aged in their 80s and 90s who were first to perish in clusters such as at the Life Care Centre nursing home in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland.