U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy on Sunday warned that the pandemic has had dire mental health impacts on American youth.
Speaking to CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union,” Murthy talked about the advisory he issued earlier this month about the urgent need to address the country’s youth mental health crisis, which existed before 2020 but has only been worsened by the ongoing pandemic that’s impacted nearly every aspect of childrens’ lives.
“I’m so concerned about our children because there is an epidemic, if you will, of mental health challenges that they’ve been facing, and it’s partly because of the pandemic,” he said. “We’ve seen, certainly, that many children have lost loved ones during this pandemic — 140,000 kids lost a caregiver. We know that their lives have been turned upside down. They haven’t been able to see friends as often as they would, and that’s taken a toll.”