There is no evidence of a ‘weaker immune system’ from COVID protocols, says public health professor

With respiratory illnesses raging across the country, children’s hospitals are faced with a spike in patients seeking medical attention.

“What’s even scarier is they are getting more sick than usual. The severity of illnesses is worse, more are seeking care in ER’s, more kids are needing admission into hospital,” says Tehseen Ladha, a pediatrician at the University of Alberta.

The cold and flu season happens on a yearly basis, but Alberta medical professionals say it arrived weeks early, pushing the Stollery Children’s Hospital to its capacity, but Dr. Carina Majaesic, Stollery Medical Director and Associate Zone Medical Director says the province might not have reached the peak of the flu season just yet.

“If this year is anything like our previous years in viral illness, we have not reached the peak yet,” she says.

There are claims that kids may have what’s being called “immunity debt” where children are more at risk of illness due to public health measures that have protected us from exposure to viral infections the last few years, however Thomas Tenkate, Associate professor of public health at the Toronto Metropolitan University says there is no evidence of our immune systems being weaker.

“They are as strong as they ever have been, what has happened though is because of the public health measures there will be situations where you haven’t been exposed to certain viruses and other pathogens and because of that lack of exposure, your immune system hasn’t gained immunity for those pathogens,” he says.

“There is the level of base-line immunity we all have then there is a more specific immunity that we have to build up, and we build that up by being exposed to different pathogens in the community so there is definitely an aspect of the more exposure we have, the more our immune system is working.”

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Dr. Ladha says masking during the pandemic has proven to be effective, but it isn’t 100 per cent effective, and therefore can’t be blamed for the situation we are currently in.

“During the pandemic, kids in daycare and preschool generally weren’t masked because they were too young to wear masks, so there was still exposure occurring, during and throughout the pandemic,” she says.

“Bringing back masking as a recommendation in indoor public spaces, in schools, would be a really effective mitigation measure because it would reduce the frequency and severity of infections. Children would still be exposed, they would take off their mask for lunch, for snacks, but they wouldn’t be getting as severely ill.”

The Alberta government is stopping short of mandating masks, but many healthcare professionals are recommending they be used indoors to help ease pressures on the healthcare system.