Experiences of Children During the Pandemic: Scrutinizing Increased Vulnerabilities in Education in the Case of Turkey

The lengthy time of school closure was one defining factor in understanding child well-being during the pandemic in a context where school as a relational space holds great importance for children, particularly those from a low socioeconomic background. Considering this significant aspect of lengthy school closure during the pandemic in Turkey, this article explores children's experiences concerning their day-to-day access to education, digital inequalities, housing conditions, and changing context of relations with peers and teachers. The article also explores the meaning that children attribute to school as a relational space where they shape their intergenerational and generational relations. The absence of the school in children's lives for almost 2 years has been a major source of longing for such significant childhood space. Following our earlier work on the children's negotiation of well-being within the boundaries of the relational spaces of home and school, this article looks into how children negotiate their well-being in a pandemic environment where school as a relational space has changed its meaning and where children's caretakers' (teachers, parents, and other) vulnerabilities have also increased. The analysis draws on the qualitative fieldwork carried out with 50 children during the summer of 2020 in Turkey. We aim to reflect on the experiences from children's perspectives within the boundaries of the constraints that the pandemic has generated. This article also discusses how COVID-19 has widened the gap and increased vulnerabilities among the already disadvantaged groups and gender in terms of available resources and their allocation as it is reflected in time use that portrays the meaning that children attribute to their own experience during the pandemic.

Immunophenotyping of lymphocytes and monocytes and the status of cytokines in the clinical course of Covid-19 patients.

Lymphopenia, T cell subgroup changes, and cytokine level differences are important in the early diagnosis and treatment of Covid-19 cases and similar pandemics. We aimed to investigate the T cell, monocyte subgroups, and cytokine differences according to disease severity. A total of 46 volunteers were included in the study. According to disease status, there were three groups (control, mild, and severe). The age, gender, smoking status, temperature, heart rate and oxygen saturation, complete blood count, C-reactive protein (CRP) was noted, and flow cytometric analyses were performed for T cell and monocyte subgroups, and cytokine levels. Temperature, heart rate, SPO2 , white blood cell (WBC), lympocyte count, trombocyte count, neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio, D-dimer and CRP levels, lymphocyte %, lymphocyte/monocyte rate, monocyte subtypes (%), CD3+ , CD4+ , CD8+ cell counts, interleukin (IL)-1ß, TNF-alpha, monocyte chemoattractant protein (MCP)-1, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IL-18, IL-23 were significantly different between groups. CRP, IL-8, neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio, NK cells (%) have positive correlation and negative correlation was observed at lymphocyte (count), lymphocyte (%), lymphocyte/monocyte, classical monocyte (%), lymphocyte (count), CD3+ (count), CD4+ (count). As conclusion, lymphocyte (%), Lymphocyte (count), CRP levels, CD3+ and CD4+ cell counts strongly correlate with disease severity are valuable parameters for determining the prognoses of Covid-19.