The amazing @DrSamiraJeimy and I collaborated on a post because we are both tired of seeing the term ‘immunity debt’ being thrown around.
We also get into why we are seeing a record number of pediatric hospitalizations, so stick with us.
🧵(1/8)
So what is this ‘immunity debt’ concept?
Claims that lack of exposure to infections weakened children's immune systems, causing them to have severe infections.
There is no evidence that this is real.
(2/8)
In the absence of infections, the immune system does not lie dormant & weaken. We are constantly exposed to & co-exist with, trillions of viruses, bacteria & fungi.
Lack of infections does not weaken the immune system. But some infections, like measles and COVID-19, can. (3/8)
Pediatric hospitals are filled with sick children. What is going on?
While numbers of RSV & influenza are not higher than last yr at this time, MORE children are hospitalized than last yr. So higher proportion of children are coming to hospital with severe illness. (4/8)
Why is this occurring?
With removal of public health measures such as masking, many viruses are spreading widely. Given we have had a break from these, most of the population is susceptible & exposed again at the same time. But doesn’t explain the higher % of sick kids. (5/8)
One hypothesis: We know many viral infections, such as Covid and measles, can impact immunity downstream, even after mild infections.
Omicron spread widely among kids, & they may not have immune reserves to fend off subsequent viruses & infections as efficiently as before. (6/8)
To add, there is a massive healthcare staffing crisis. Healthcare workers are sick themselves, leaving healthcare due to being burnt out & underpaid. Without staff, hospital beds are in short supply.
Also, there is an ongoing shortage of fever reducing meds for children. (7/8)
Many are using this crisis to claim that public health measures have somehow impacted our immunity - THIS IS NOT A THING.
The public health measures we took in the last few years only helped reduce the burden of illness and did not in fact cause this crisis. (8/8)
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So much disinformation on AstraZeneca's announcement re: withdrawing their COVID-19 vaccine, so I thought I should go back and review the timelines of what occurred in Canada.
AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine was first approved in Canada on Feb. 26, 2021. /2 cbc.ca/news/politics/…
In Canada, it was first only recommended to be used in adults 64 and younger. This is because the initial study results were too limited to allow a reliable estimate of vaccine efficacy in individuals 65+. /3 ctvnews.ca/health/coronav…
New post on Rapid Antigen Tests. Will post the entire thread here instead of just a link, given importance.
A master thread with current data: key concepts, which brands are more sensitive, tips to improve sensitivity & important considerations. 1/7
Recent CDC MMRW Report found overall sensitivity of RATs was 47% compared to PCR.
The peak percentage of positive RAT was 59.0% occurred 3 days after onset of symptoms.
Highest on days when fever was reported, lowest on days when no symptoms were reported. 2/7
Overall QuickVue and Flowflex had the highest sensitivity. Special mention for Australian Fanttest. Several commonly used RATs performed extremely poorly. 3/7
Avian Flu:
Current situation, context and what you need to know 1/8
AVIAN FLU - A BRIEF HISTORY:
Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) is caused by Influenza A H5 and H7 viruses. The current highly infectious strain of Avian Influenza that is spreading is the H5N1.
H5N1 is not new. 2/8
Currently we have an outbreak of the subtype H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b.
There are 33 outbreaks across 8 states in cattle reported in USA. None in dairy cattle in Canada, CFIA monitoring closely.
This degree of spread outside of birds & poultry is unprecedented & concerning. 3/8
In science & esp medicine, risk is a tricky thing to contend with - besides of course being a mathematical one - and involves many considerations in order to have a more fulsome understanding.
In this post @LizMarnik and I attempt to explain these concepts. 1/9
In simple terms, risk is the probability of an event occurring. In statistical terms, the risk of an event occurring is simply defined as its probability. 2/9
Take a fictitious disease - AhCrap. Risk of dying due to this is 2/million & using GoodStuff tx can reduce risk to 1/million.
While relative risk reduction is 50%, only one less person out of 1M w AhCrap are saved by GoodStuff, making absolute risk reduction fairly small. 3/9
A week ago, a new paper was published evaluating the safety of Pfizer, Moderna & AstraZeneca vaccines. Unfortunately, the media’s response with sensational headlines has been both irresponsible & misleading.
Here is a deep dive I did with @LizMarnik & @niniandthebrain
Samples were collected via a prospective observational study that enrolled individuals with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection with and without long COVID symptoms 3/7