The inquiry gathered the stories of 18,000 children and young people impacted by the pandemic.
The hearing was told of children who spent 19 hours a day playing video games, and young offenders who were only given 45 minutes outside of their cell.
Mum Aisha told the inquiry’s Every Story Matters project that she believes her 17-year-old son’s current lack of education, employment or training is largely because of the important years of schooling he missed during the pandemic.
“Usually, you have the work experience and are thinking about what you’re going to do in the future, you have all of that guidance in school, and he didn’t,” she said.
“Now he just hangs around in places where he shouldn’t, he’s in trouble.”
The inquiry also heard about children who were most at risk, and suffered “grievous harm” at the hands of those who should have been caring for them.
Social worker Imani said she found it incredibly challenging to assess families with a history of domestic violence and had to rely on virtual visits.
“It became very, very tricky,” she said.
“For example, if you say, ‘Can I see the home environment?’ you know that someone will point the phone or the camera to where they want you to see, as opposed to the angles that they really don’t want you to see. We couldn’t really see those children.”
Many children are still living with long Covid, or the lifelong consequences of not being able to access the right support, the inquiry heard.
Grace, from Wales, said she struggled to get medical help for her newborn son for multiple ear infections during the pandemic.
He was only able to meet a hearing specialist years later, by which point Grace was told that he was partially deaf as a result.
“He’s now four-and-a-half and it was only a year ago that we managed to get him a hearing appointment,” she said.
“That could’ve been picked up a lot earlier if it was easier to get seen.”
The government has said it is committed to learning lessons from the inquiry. The session looking into the impact on children and young people is expected to last four weeks.