Thread by @Theresa_Chapple

On #immunitydebt
1- public health measures have limited exposure to diseases for a century. Yet, the phrase immunity debt just recently popped. When public health measures stopped exposure to waterborne diseases, people just lived longer, no faulty claims of immunity debt.

2- The age group most likely to be hospitalized by RSV are 0-6 mths. This age group was born during the "live with COVID" or "return to normal" phase of the pandemic. They didn't experience public health mitigations, therefore no "immunity debt" from it. cdc.gov/rsv/research/r…

3- and most importantly, your immune system is not a muscle, you dont need to continually exercise it to make sure it works. So public health measures that let us enjoy 2+ years w/out flu and RSV didn't cause your immune system to forget how to work.

4- immunity debt is just an hypothesis created by a researcher named Cohen, many in infectious diseases disagree.

A plausible hypothesis is that COVID has damaged our immune system. The results of our "let it rip" approach may be seen during this wave of severe RSV & Flu cases.

To me, all this talk about why we have so many respiratory illnesses to fight right now, it's all missing the point.
The point should be prevention. We should be asking if we prevented these illnesses for 3 seasons, why did we decide not to prevent it this year?

Why are we watching pediatric hospitalizations rise instead of implementing mitigations we know could keep our youngest citizens healthy?

We don't have to accept or expect preventable diseases, hospitalizations, and death.