New Zealand Children Falling Ill in High Numbers Due to Lockdown ‘Immunity Debt’

Children wards full of infants with RSV

New Zealand hospitals are experiencing the payoff of “immunity debt” created by Covid-19 lockdowns, with wards flooded by babies with a potentially-deadly respiratory virus, doctors have warned.

Wellington has 46 children currently hospitalised for respiratory illnesses including respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. A number are infants, and many are on oxygen. Other hospitals are also experiencing a rise in cases that are straining their resources – with some delaying surgeries or converting playrooms into clinical space.

RSV is a common respiratory illness. In adults, it generally only produces very mild symptoms – but it can make young children extremely ill, or even be fatal. The size and seriousness of New Zealand’s outbreak is likely being fed by what some paediatric doctors have called an “immunity debt” – where people don’t develop immunity to other viruses suppressed by Covid lockdowns, causing cases to explode down the line.

Epidemiologist and public health professor Michael Baker used the metaphor of forest brushfires: if a year or two have passed without fire, there is more fuel on the ground to feed the flames. When a fire finally comes, it burns much more fiercely. “What we’re seeing now is we’ve accumulated a whole lot of susceptible children that have missed out on exposure – so now they’re seeing it for the first time,” Baker said.

The “immunity debt” phenomenon occurs because measures like lockdowns, hand-washing, social distancing and masks are not only effective at controlling Covid-19. [Actually, there is no correlation between lockdowns and COVID outcomes whatsover.] They also suppress the spread of other illnesses that transmit in a similar way, including the flu, common cold, and lesser-known respiratory illnesses like RSA. In New Zealand, lockdowns last winter led to a 99.9% reduction in flu cases and a 98% reduction in RSV – and near-eliminated the spike of excess deaths New Zealand usually experiences during winter.

“This positive collateral effect in the short term is welcome, as it prevents additional overload of the healthcare system,” a collective of French doctors wrote in a May 2021 study of immunity debt. But in the long term, it can create problems of its own: if bacterial and viral infections aren’t circulating among children, they don’t develop immunity, which leads to larger outbreaks down the line.

“The lack of immune stimulation… induced an “immunity debt” which could have negative consequences when the pandemic is under control and lockdowns are lifted,” the doctors wrote. “The longer these periods of ‘viral or bacterial low-exposure’ are, the greater the likelihood of future epidemics.”

New Zealand has reported nearly 1,000 RSV cases in the past five weeks, according to the Institute of Environmental Science and Research. The usual average is 1,743 over the full 29-week winter seasonAustralia is also experiencing a surge, with overcrowded Victoria hospitals also hit by unusually high rates of RSV.

Peaks like the current outbreak don’t necessarily mean the country will have more RSV cases overall, Baker says – it may just be that all the cases are grouped together, instead of spread out over several years. But even that can cause major problems. “If you get a big peak it can overwhelm your health system, or put real pressure on it, which we’re seeing with RSV,” Baker said. [Sound like lockdowns don’t flatten curves and “protect” the health system, but instead cause more explosive outbreaks than would have otherwise not been possible.]

The current outbreak is already stretching New Zealand’s hospitals. At Middlemore hospital in Auckland, a playroom has been converted into a clinical space with 11 special care baby cots. Health boards in Auckland and Canterbury have postponed surgeries to divert resources into children’s wards. A number of hospitals have asked children under 12 not to visit, to try to avoid spreading the virus. John Tait, chief medical officer for the Wellington area’s district health boards said the region had 46 children hospitalised, including two in intensive care. Those numbers were “continually changing as patients are discharged and others admitted,” he said.

Usually, people experience near-universal exposure to RSV as children, Baker said, with most exposed in their first year of life.

“If you remove that exposure for a period then you will have a bigger cohort of unexposed children, and therefore – as you can see we have happening at the moment – it can sustain a much bigger outbreak when they are eventually exposed to the virus.”

While RSV is a common cause of winter hospitalisation of children, elderly people and people with suppressed immune systems are also vulnerable. New Zealand’s director-general of health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, said he was “certainly concerned about the sharp surge in RSV cases”.

“We had very little RSV last year,” he said. “There’s some speculation that [the current outbreak] may be partly exacerbated by the fact we didn’t have any last year and so there is a bigger pool of children who are susceptible to it.”

Source: The Guardian

12 Comments
  1. ken says

    Anyone that think lockdowns stop viruses are brain dead.

    What is more likely is that the dumbshit adults and older children wearing masks are coming down with respiratory illnesses , then passing it on to infants. The illness the parents have may not be severe for them.

    Medical nazis know wearing masks cause problems but apparently would rather people get sick and possibly die then go against the ‘science’.

    Epidemiologists coming up with a forest fire analogy shows their education was a total failure. This is ‘science’ in the 21st century?

    Who needs wars anymore to decimate populations… just send in the quacks.

    1. GMC says

      And the biggest quack is the lady that used to work for the British Gov. and is now the Boss lady of KiwiLand.

      1. ken says

        Yes,,, I do not understand why they keep this person in charge. She is obviously doing everything she can to destroy the nation. But there’s not muh one can say if the citizens themselves allow her to continue….

    2. Ultrafart the Brave says

      “Anyone that think lockdowns stop viruses are brain dead.”

      That is so obvious by now that it is virtually indisputable. Nor do the Corona Chan “vaccines”, which the American CDC and all the “vaccine” makers freely admit neither stop infection nor transmission of the Corona Chan bug.

      While Ivermectin most emphatically does – it safely kills Corona Chan stone dead as well as a raft of other viruses – yet it’s been banned in Australia and many other “democratic” nations around the world.

      ============================================================

      Dr. Ryan Cole Talks About Covid-19, Ivermectin, & The Importance Of Vitamin D
      [ https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/06/no_author/talk-about-covid-19-mrna-bioweapon-ivermectin-the-importance-of-vitamin-d-dr-ryan-cole/ ]
      [ https://www.bitchute.com/embed/InH89amCpy7S/ ]

      ============================================================

      Dr. Ryan Cole Speaks on the Corona Chan Virus
      [ https://rumble.com/embed/vgajwv/ ]
      [ https://sp.rmbl.ws/s8/2/T/3/j/5/T3j5b.caa.mp4 ]

      ============================================================

    3. Mark says

      Wait for the ‘immunity debt’ that supposedly will come due worldwide during the next flu season – traditionally December to February in North America – when those whose systems have been re-engineered to develop antibodies against the Coronavirus spike protein come up against respiratory viruses they are no longer naturally programmed to fight.This will, according to doctors and virologists on the side of the crackpots and conspiracy theorists, invite ADE; Antibody-Dependent Enhancement, in which the immune system turns against the body.

      The FDA is sufficiently invested in protecting the reputation of America’s ‘miracle vaccines’ that it has introduced new ‘guidance’ which counsels AGAINST accepting the results of antibody tests as a measure of immunity. I wish I were making that up, but I’m not. Read it and weep. Or laugh, perhaps; I’m no longer sure what is the correct response.

      https://off-guardian.org/2021/07/06/fda-reverses-itself-rejects-covid-antibody-test-results-insanity-reigns/

      1. ken says

        “when those whose systems have been re-engineered to develop antibodies against the Coronavirus spike protein come up against respiratory viruses they are no longer naturally programmed to fight.”

        One can see the problem here. Supposedly the mRNA concoction causes the cells in your body to manufacture the spike protein. If your body is producing these proteins then the immune system will likely ignore them. So, possibly you die without putting up a fight….

        Lie 1: The virus is real….. No, not isolated nor ‘proven’ to cause the disease.
        Lie 2: The PCR test can determine infection…. No, per inventor Kary Mullis
        Lie 3: The vaccine is safe and effective….. Really? 7000 dead in the US, almost 16000 in the EU. In 1976 they stopped the Swine flu shots after only 25 died.

        Therefore I am not persuaded these spike proteins exist as well. Maybe they do but are not what they are telling us.

        The obvious bio weapon is the vaxxine which explains their fanatical push.

        Note: Vaxxine is used here as the polar opposite of a Vaccine.

    4. Voz 0db says

      For me that sort of rocks don’t even have a brain to begin with…

      1. ken says

        The brain and backbone has been ripped out of most today during their years in government indoctrination centers humorously called schools.

    5. Chris says

      Mask wearing is extremely rare in NZ and has been throughout. Only on public transport and flights is it requested and not ente forced either.

  2. Ultrafart the Brave says

    “Epidemiologist and public health professor Michael Baker used the metaphor of forest brushfires: if a year or two have passed without fire, there is more fuel on the ground to feed the flames. When a fire finally comes, it burns much more fiercely.”

    What an elegant metaphor for the damage done to the children by the Corona Chan lockdowns.

    Hopefully this will be considered newsworthy and get wide coverage around the world.

    Australians should be able to relate to this analogy.

  3. Mr Reynard says

    What did you expect, stupid Kiwis ??
    When you elect a gofer slut of the War Criminal Tony Blair, you get what yo have ?
    BTW Tony Blair is very proud of having mentored that slut !

  4. Daz says

    This is exactly part of what the illegal house arrests were intended to do. Part psychological torture, part economic impoverishment, part behavioural control and part immunodeficiency. That globalist garbage Ardern must be giggling in private at how many children might die.

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