Children born during first COVID-19 lockdown in UK found it more difficult to focus, follow instructions and regulate their emotions at 4 years of age

There is also the other explanation, which has a lot of mechanistic science already, that is the impact of the virus itself on the children before and after birth. Its been known since 2020 that the virus causes neurological damage and the evidence keeps coming in on just how bad news it is. We see it all over society at the moment, blamed on other things but the scientific papers showing the structural changes in the brain are many times replicated now.