By Dr Meghan Bauer ND
December 16, 2022
My kids have been sick since September, or have they? Are their never-ending drippy noses, dry coughs, and dark circles under their eyes an actual illness? I’ve noticed a difference in the way they are getting sick. Could this be related to a ‘post COVID’ factor and if so, what’s happening? Are children who had mild infections with COVID 19 and who do not have Long COVID seeing changes to their immune systems?
Thanks to recent and somewhat controversial discussion about the possibility of post COVID immune changes as well as warranted concern and alarm about the ‘triple-demic’ of respiratory viruses (COVID, Influenza and RSV) I’ve been able to explore this idea with some expert opinions and recent studies.
“Immunity Debt”
A speculative theory that pandemic restrictions and lockdowns have created a harmful “immunity debt” for children because of decreased exposure to regular viral infections. “There is no evidence that an individual is worse off for having avoided earlier infection” states Anjana Ahuja, author of a recent and strongly held opinion piece in the Financial Times called “’Immunity debt’ is a Misguided and Dangerous Concept.”
Deborah Dunn-Walters, professor of Immunology at the University of Surrey, says “Immunity debt as an individual concept is not recognised in immunology,” “The immune system is not viewed as a muscle that has to be used all the time to be kept in shape.” She says it’s important to distinguish between individual and population immunity (herd immunity) when assessing how pandemic measures may have altered the spread of non-COVID diseases.
Is COVID 19 Dysregulating our Immune System?
A recent and well rounded debate on TVO’s The Agenda explores this question with a panel of experts.
“If you look at certain immune markers in our blood there are changes that are long lasting. It’s not full recovery as of yet.” says Baltimore, Maryland’s, T cell Immunologist Anthony Leonardi about post COVID changes to our immune system.
Colin Furness, infections control epidemiologist at the University of Toronto coined the theoretical term “Immunity robbery” on Twitter. “When a virus harms your immune response, making you more susceptible to subsequent infections.” He warns that “Recent data about kids with RSV suggests that maybe some kids are having a really bad immune suppression problem. Immune harm would help to explain some of these observations.” “I hope I’m wrong” he adds.
Dr. Allison McGeer, Medical biologist, and Infectious disease specialist at Mt. Sinai Hospital cautions that it’s difficult to tease out the impact on individuals who had mild omicron infections. And hypothesises that it is unlikely that there’s going to be a long-term impact that is clinically significant for most people.
What this says about our children’s health and possible immune changes I’m not sure. With an unlikely immune debt and a potential for some immune change after infection with COVID 19 I’m left with more questions than answers and a familiar feeling of the liminal COVID experience. Hopefully with continued, open-minded debate and focused research we will be able to gain increased clarity on what and how exactly this impactful virus continues to affect us. In the meantime, I’m thankful that at least my husband has sick days available and that we’ve become unwilling experts at juggling kids and work and life, or have we?
*** Consider a naturopathic consultation for strategies to improve immune health. We might not understand yet how COVID is affecting us in the long term but we do know how to help support our immune system in general. Naturopathic Dr’s use evidence-based strategies to help support our immune system from different angles such as fostering a healthy microbiome, improving our stress response, and optimizing vitamins and nutrients like Vitamin D.