> Mental damage vs brain damage, take your pick. Personally I pick the one that doesn't kill their grandparents, seeing as childhood trauma also causes cognitive impairment.

I think this is overly simplistic, and doesn't consider the relative rates of both.

Besides - The goal of managing Covid shouldn't be to reduce total cognitive impairment, it should be to maximise the total quality of life for everyone. For me, forcing kids to wear a mask throughout school is a significant quality of life reduction, as well as loss of high-quality education which will no doubt continue to drive inequality in the years ahead.

There is no 'right' and 'wrong' approach here.