Documentary Explores Impact of COVID-19 School Closures
An upcoming documentary, Generation COVID, looks into the enduring effects of school closures following the COVID-19 pandemic. Directed by Jennifer Sey and Andrew James, the film follows the experiences of children and families in California, New York, Oregon, Colorado, and Connecticut. The documentary was filmed over more than four years.
Sey mentioned to Fox News Digital that while the nation seems ready to move forward, many children continue to face challenges due to the pandemic’s impact. Sey, formerly the global chief marketing officer of Levi Strauss & Co., stressed the importance of creating a record to prevent similar occurrences in the future:
“It just feels to me like everyone wants to move on, and there’s really been no reckoning about what we did to young people in particular.”
The documentary seeks to offer a visual account of how school closures affected American children and to advocate for a different approach in future pandemics.
Sey, who lived in San Francisco for over 30 years, openly criticized the city’s extended shutdowns. Her opposition to these measures led her to leave the city, costing her a decades-long career. After resigning in 2022, she began producing the documentary.
A former elite gymnast, Sey’s dedication to child protection stems from her own experiences. She faced abuse as an athlete, a subject she addressed in the Emmy-winning documentary Athlete A, which focuses on the Larry Nassar abuse scandal and broader issues in gymnastics. Sey has been a long-time advocate, having first exposed abuse in gymnastics in 2008. Her actions are driven by a desire to fight for suffering children:
“I feel like everyone’s moved on, but the kids have not moved on.”
During the pandemic, Sey felt children were dehumanized, often turned into mere statistics. She highlighted that children’s developmental needs, such as social interaction, were ignored:
“They were models, they were cogs in a wheel, and we lost all sense of the humanity of a child.”
The documentary also addresses the censorship that Sey believes played a role in maintaining school closures. Generation COVID premieres on October 22 on SalemNOW.