The consequences of repeated COVID-19 infections are now becoming clear in B.C., across Canada and around the world
“I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. It’s been a rotating door here of sickness. Someone is always sick. Since September, and I don’t even know if blaming schools and daycare is the reason. I need family immunity help. Any tips? ” – shared by a mom on social media, December 2024
For many B.C. families, this has been a challenging fall.
B.C. schools restarted during a summer surge of COVID-19, and since then, it’s been a neverending parade of viruses infecting schoolchildren and their families. In the lead-up to the holidays, B.C.’s pediatric laboratory RSV test positivity rate was hitting last year’s high of 30 per cent. Meanwhile the pediatric RSV admissions were outpacing last year’s, as per the latest report of the Canadian Nosocomial Infection Surveillance Program. At the same time, influenza infections were ramping up.
For parents, this may feel like déjà vu, stirring up memories of the fall of 2022. Recall the tripledemic of RSV, influenza, and COVID-19 when pharmacies ran out of kids’ Tylenol, children’s hospitals ran out of ICU beds, and Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario called in the Red Cross to help.
The ‘immunity debt’ narrative
In the fall of 2022, parents were told to blame “immunity debt” for the surge in children and youths’ respiratory infections. Immunity
ANALYSIS: Why are B.C. kids sick all the time? Health experts explain
