1/Pediatric Catastrophe in Germany: Kids are getting severely ill with RSV even though total RSV infections is lower than last year. This is after a majority of kids here were infected with #SARSCoV2 in early 2022 when all infection prevention was canceled in daycares & schools.
2/Pediatricians are warning of full hospitals & that kids will die. They're asking to bring back masks. But politicians refuse to reinstate mask rules, & continue to let Covid, RSV & Flu rip through schools & daycares. They have accepted the trauma & deaths of countless children.
3/Instead, politicians are now blaming masks for severe RSV cases, basing their policies on pseudoscientific claims that conflict with growing scientific consensus on immune dysregulation caused by #SARSCoV2 infections. They are turning people against infection prevention.
4/Meanwhile, homeschooling is illegal here & if you pull your kids from school, you face not only fines but also removal of parental rights. So, German kids are being forced against their will to get sick in unsafe schools, while there are NO open hospital beds to treat them.
5/The half-assed response from German Health Minister @Karl_Lauterbach is a complete embarrassment. He recommends borrowing staff from adult ICUs to work on PICUs and to lower the ratio of nursing staff to sick children. So there will just be more sick kids with substandard care.
6/I am aware that a similar phenomenon is happening in other countries, including Sweden, Canada, USA, etc. We need international pressure to change the course and #ProtectTheKids from further immune-damaging Covid infections and severe RSV. We need the @WHO to push for #MaskUp!
7/Sources
Situation and pediatricians' call for masks:
noz.de/deutschland-we…
Corona immune dysregulation:
nature.com/articles/s4159…
RSV waves in Germany in 2021 and 2022:
Further sources
Warning that children will die due to lack of capacity in hospitals:
Lauterbach's anti-prevention plan to use staff from full adult ICUs and his adoption of unscientific "immunity debt" talking points:
tagesschau.de/wissen/gesundh…
More sources
Comparison of 2019 and 2022 RSV waves in Germany:
Link between prior #SARSCoV2 infection and increased RSV infection risk:
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
The catastrophe in Germany (@guardian):
"'The situation is so precarious that we genuinely have to say children are dying because we can’t treat them any more,' Dr. Michael Sasse, head of paediatric intensive care at Hanover’s MHH University hospital"
theguardian.com/society/2022/d…
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