Suffer the little masked children*: Unintended (perhaps) but entirely predictable consequences

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All to placate the NEA and Randy Weingarten

Children are being infected with up to THREE viruses at a time because COVID measures have worn down their immune systems and made them vulnerable to illnesses usually only caught in winter, experts warn

  • Health experts across the United States have told The Washington Post that they are seeing children with multiple viral infections at once

  • As the weather warms doctors usually see a decrease in the prevalence of influenza and other viruses associated with the common cold

  • Now some children are arriving at their doctor's office with three viral infections at a time

  • Experts believe that it is a result of COVID pandemic policies, which meant children were not exposed to the normal array of viruses

Other strange patterns have emerged.

The rhinovirus, known as the common cold, is normally not severe enough to send people to hospital - but now it is.

Michael Mina, an epidemiologist and chief science officer at the digital health platform eMed, described the current situation as a 'massive natural experiment'

RSV normally tapers off in the warmer weather, as does the influenza, but they have not.

Mina added that the shift in what time of year Americans are seeing infections is likely due to the population's lack of exposure to once-common viruses - making us vulnerable when they return.

'When you have a lot of people who don't have immunity, the impact of the season is less. It's like free rein,' he said.

…. The shifts are also making hospitals rethink their approach to RSV - a common virus that hospitalizes about 60,000 children under five each year. It can create deadly lung infections in particularly vulnerable youngsters. 

Treatment is with monthly doses of a monoclonal antibody, which is normally only available from November to February.

Now concerned scientists are tracking the virus carefully, in case they suddenly need to obtain the drug.

Ellen Foxman, an immunobiologist at the Yale School of Medicine, whose research explores why viruses can make one person very sick but leave another relatively unharmed, said that babies born during the pandemic are likely to be of great interest to scientists.

'Those kids did not have infection at a crucial time of lung development,' she said.

*Yes, I’m aware of the biblical use of this term; let it be