These school closures caused unpresidented children and youth to drop out of school due to the unappealing nature of remote learning, and severed students from their friends and any support structure they had.
When parents were concerned about about their childrens education and mental health, they get told that "children are resilient". That phrase was basically saying "I dont care about your children anymore"
On March 1st 2020 was the day the Wuhan Flu arrived in the United States. On March 11th most States lockdown their economies and society driven by media hysteria and political pressure.
It was the day that America and the anime convention scene died.
These lockdowns, lockdown restrictions, media hysteria, and health mandates have caused a irreversible change and decline in not only the U.S. but also the anime convention scene and cosplay scene.
Along with the school closures of March 13th 2023, this has caused a irrversable loss of learning and social skills and future prospects of children across the U.S. Which society for the most part refuses to address.
I actually love reddit's antiwork subreddit of the concept of people should be working to live, not living to work. Then I see this: The fact that "we didn't do enough" to contain the Wuhan Flu.
Ironically most of the left blew their wad on cargo culting China's ZeroCovid instead of demanding unlimited paid sick leave during the Wuhan Flu.
And they recited straight up propaganda despite government policy via their state governors destroyed the main street economy
Ironically these "socialists" demanded people to vote for Biden during the 2020 election, and now they're complaining that he didn't do enough.
Ironically it's government policy via the state and federal level by lockdowns and "free" money is causing the shortage of workers.
...,rapidly approaching Anime Expo levels of attendee counts, and willfully refused to operate normal when legally allowed to in 2022, I will be skipping this year.
The anime convention industry is still struggling to recover as a whole and the lockdowns have driven people...
who are into anime conventions who are pushed away by the culture change and the self-imposed restrictions to take a break from conventions and save their money or seek other conventions out of state.
Nan Desu Kan in Colorado not dropping their mask mandate when the CDC is recommending a back to normal approach and ignoring medical exceptions is another example of the rot that is happening at anime conventions.
It's has nothing to do with health but about hygiene theater.
"Inclusive" unless you have a legitimate health reason you can't wear a face mask, or if you have athsma or have a developmental disability.
The last two years is a permanment black stain in the anime convention industry.
They could have focused making conventions better with more events to make it up but focused on hygine threater.
Anime Conventions as we know it for the most part are effectively dead.