Forever-Covid hurts young people’s health – and their futures

 My article in today's Irish Independent. The only mainstream media outlet in the world to allow the "Immunity debt" codswallop to be interrogated & debunked, from the start. Thanks to my lovely editor, Tom Coogan, & the Indo for not being afraid of salting the vibes🙏

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/tess-finch-lees-forever-covid-hurts-young-peoples-health-and-their-futures/a58161326.html

“Immunity debt” doesn’t exist, immune damage does. Children are sicker now than pre-pandemic – many with disabling chronic illnesses. This cycle of harm can only stop when we accept reality – there’s no off ramp without cleaning classroom air".

Trigger warning 1: The article contains photos of children wearing fun floral masks. Note to anti-maskers: It's never too late to embrace science.

Trigger warning 2: The masks featured are not respirators (ffp2/3 or N95s), therefore offering little or no protection against airborne viruses, including SARS-CoV-2.

Note to those upset by that: I don't get to choose the photos. Please direct complaints to the chief medical officer for  negligence & dereliction of duty to inform the public that covid is airborne & that cleaning indoor air & respirator masks are proven to protect against all airborne diseases.

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/tess-finch-lees-forever-covid-hurts-young-peoples-health-and-their-futures/a58161326.html

Excerpt:

"The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has just cited these studies as evidence that “immunity debt”, a theory to explain the global surge in non-Covid infections since pandemic restrictions were lifted, is being challenged by emerging evidence. BMJ documents the prevalence of bacterial infections, flare-ups of old viruses, and children being hospitalised with diseases not usually seen in young, healthy people.

In the report, Samira Jeimy, an immunologist at the University of Western Ontario, explained that as many infants and toddlers hospitalised with rare infections since 2022 weren’t born when pandemic restrictions were in place, they cannot be experiencing immunity debt.

They were, however, probably exposed to coronavirus, she said.

Prof Jeimy believes that people who are unwilling to consider the possibility of immune system damage are perhaps driven by a fear of what it might mean. As she told BMJ: “Nobody wants to be the one that says, ‘Yes, Covid-19 causes disability’.”

It’s the responsibility of Ireland’s interim chief medical officer, Mary Horgan, to disseminate these BMJ findings. Instead, children have returned again to overcrowded, under-ventilated classrooms amid yet another coronavirus wave, with hand sanitiser and Calpol as their only protections against the dangerous airborne disease".

And

"Ziyad Al-Aly, professor of medicine at Washington University, said: “We worry about kids’ educational attainment, forming friendships, sports. All these facets of normal development could be impaired in long-Covid. This may negatively affect children in their most formative years, leaving them scarred for life.”

Níl na páistí ceart go leor.