Dr. Phil McGraw educated the hosts of "The View" on Monday about the harm COVID lockdowns brought on schoolchildren and teenagers.

While discussing his forthcoming book, Dr. Phil connected the advent of the smartphone to high levels of "depression, anxiety, loneliness, and suicidality" among children and teenagers because users "stopped living their lives and starting watching people live their lives."

Those problems were exacerbated by COVID lockdowns, Dr. Phil explained, pointing out that the same government agencies that track these problems among American youth were the "same agencies" that "shut down the schools for two years."

"Who does that? Who takes away the support system for these children? Who takes it away and shuts it down?" he asked. "And by the way, when they shut it down, they stopped the mandated reporters from being able to see children that were being abused and sexually molested and, in fact, sent them home and abandoned them to their abusers with no way to watch, and referrals dropped 50% to 60%."

Sunny Hostin was the first co-host to interject and defend the lockdowns. She was quickly followed by Whoopi Goldberg.

"There was also a pandemic going on, and they were trying to save their lives," Hostin told Dr. Phil.

"They were trying to save kids' lives," Goldberg defended.

"Not schoolchildren," Dr. Phil shot back.

Ana Navarro then took her chance at Dr. Phil, asking a question that prompted a reality check from Dr. Phil.

"Are you saying no schoolchildren died of COVID?" Navarro asked.

"I'm saying it was the safest group. They were the less vulnerable group," Dr. Phil responded. "And they suffered and will suffer more from the mismanagement of COVID than they will from the exposure to COVID. And that's not an opinion — that's a fact."

The audience loudly applauded Dr. Phil's answer.

Dr. Phil is right.

Young people, especially teenagers and children, were the least likely to die from COVID-19.

But that didn't stop politicians and bureaucrats from shutting down schools. Now, nearly everyone agrees the lockdown policies are responsible for widespread learning loss, a deficit for which the "experts" have yet to find a solution.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!