https://archive.is/60s0p
"Respiratory syncytial virus is a little-known and hard-to-spell seasonal
scourge that, like flu, most seriously affects children and older people. It
usually triggers coughs and colds but can cause serious breathing difficulties
in a small minority of infants.
RSV is so common that more than 80 per cent of UK children are infected by
their second birthday — but case numbers plummeted during the Covid-19
pandemic. Measures such as masking, plus school and nursery closures, intended
to slow the spread of Covid, also put the brakes on infection rates. Now the
virus is resurgent, particularly in the US, with the wave hitting earlier than
expected.
That has fuelled speculation that pandemic mitigations, including lockdowns,
created a harmful “immunity debt”, with children left vulnerable through a lack
of exposure to the usual cut and thrust of viral infections. But scientists
have dismissed the concept, as applied to individual immunity, as misguided.
The discussion swirling around immunity debt shows how easy it is for a
plausible-sounding theory to circulate as misinformation. In this case,
misinformation risks promoting the unfounded assertion that infections are
clinically beneficial to children, as well as feeding the revisionist narrative
that Covid measures did more harm than good.
Professor Peter Openshaw, a respiratory doctor and immunologist who studies RSV
and flu at Imperial College London, says the current “high and unseasonal” RSV
wave is assumed to be a result of lockdowns causing levels of immunity to wane
in children, parents and carers, paving the way for a greater number of
infections.
But to frame this as an immunity debt, Openshaw warns, mistakenly suggests
“that immunity is something we need to invest in, and that by protecting
ourselves from infection we are building up a deficit that has ultimately to be
repaid. This would not be a good message for public health: we would still have
open sewers and be drinking from water contaminated with cholera if this idea
were followed to its logical conclusion.” Delaying RSV infection may actually
be beneficial, he adds, as the virus is deadliest to infants younger than six
months. Globally among under-fives, one in 50 deaths is attributable to RSV."
Via Christoph S.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
