Why is Everyone Sick all the Time?

7thunders

New member
Hi ya'll! I first made this post here on the ECE Professionals subreddit, and someone in the comments mentioned people here might like to read it. I used to be an ECE teacher before leaving due to some health complications from immune issues. I’ve been learning a lot as I figure more out about my own health issues, and wanted to provide some info on the science behind why it seems like everyone is so much sicker than we used to be. I’ve also included some resources about what to do if you notice you’re having some immune issues yourself. I am new to the Science Based Parenting community, so please let me know if anything is breaking the rules or needs to be fixed. I’m also happy to provide sources to any claims with none linked.

As most people have noticed, childhood and adult illnesses have been way up since the start of the covid pandemic. Some people blame masks, saying that because our immune systems weren’t exposed to regular illnesses during masking they’re now making up for lost time, but we are two years out from widespread masking, and there is no solid evidence that after this long it would still be affecting our immunity. This “immunity debt” theory has been well debunked (info) (info). In actuality, the huge uptick we’re seeing in all kinds of illnesses is likely a sign of widespread immune damage due to covid.

We now know covid can do serious immune damage even if you are young, previously healthy, vaccinated, and had a mild initial infection (info). From a study released earlier this year, covid infections permanently damage T-Cells, a crucial type of white blood cell, in similar ways to HIV and Hepatitis-C. Covid is also causing lymphocytopenia in some people, a type of white blood cell damage that is also commonly associated with infections like HIV (info). Immune damage like this leads to greater susceptibility to infection, and is likely the reason we are seeing worldwide outbreaks of things like bacterial pneumonia, tuberculosis, and fungal infections.

Not only does covid infection cause immune damage, but it can also damage every organ system in the body (info). Symptoms of lasting damage from covid, called long-covid, can include memory issues or brain fog, gut issues, joint pain, fatigue, shortness of breath, elevated heart rate, and more (info). These symptoms can start months to years after your initial infection. Covid infection also increases risk of diabetes, heart disease, blood clots, stroke, and Alzheimer’s, among many other conditions (info). In fact, in the first two years of the pandemic alone, heart attack deaths for American adults age 25-44 increased about 30% (info). Your risk of complications increases with each infection you get.

Long-Covid is known to impact at least 1/5 adults and at least 1/10 children who catch covid, although studies are now showing much higher rates as people continue to be reinfected (info). Professionals like teachers and doctors are coming down with long covid more than the general population, due to their high exposure. From this study, children have a 78% increased risk of a new health condition following covid infection, and this study showed evidence of blood vessel damage in every participating child with covid, regardless of infection severity. If you would like to know more about the health risks covid poses to children, this page has a large collection of sources. This page as well has a very good FAQ on the current state of covid for adults and children, with over 300 sources linked. You can also check out r/CovidLongHaulers for some first person stories of what it’s like to have long covid.

If you think you have some new health issues following covid infection, this page from Yale has information on what symptoms might look like and how to test and treat them. If you believe your immunity to illness has been affected by a covid infection (which can happen with or without other long-covid symptoms), you’ll need to get blood-work done to test for inflammation and autoimmune issues (info). Unfortunately, the blood markers that signal immune issues can be finicky, so it often takes multiple rounds of labs to catch anything. Autoimmune issues are notorious for not being taken seriously by doctors because they’re hard to test for and mostly affect women, so if you think you’re having immune issues the most important thing you can do is advocate for yourself and work to find a doctor who believes you. Many people are told for years their symptoms are nothing before they finally get proof (info).

If you would like to protect yourself and your classroom from covid, the two most important things you can do are to wear a well-fitted kn95 or n95 mask and to filter the air in your classroom. This article has good info on choosing a mask that will protect you, and this one has links to purchase them online. Here are instructions on making sure your mask fits you. Project N95 provides free masks, and many cities have independent organizations providing free or low cost masks, too. I get mine from the OSHA section of my local hardware store. To filter the air in your classroom, you will need a HEPA filter (which can run a few hundred bucks) or you will need a CR Box, which are much cheaper at about $75 and are super easy to make using a box fan and air filters. CR boxes can actually be more effective for air filtration than HEPA filters! There are some programs that provide free and low-cost CR boxes for classrooms, though I’m not sure where to find one that is active right now. I know some teachers have had success asking parents if they could help out with funding/building one for the classroom. Getting the updated vaccine is also important, as the original one no longer protects against the new variants circulating. Testing for covid regularly also help to prevent spread. Rapid tests are most accurate 4-5 days after symptom onset, and swabbing both your throat and nose can up the odds of an accurate test, if you do it correctly (instructions). Keep in mind that rapid tests were designed for the original variants and do not work as well to detect the new ones, so a negative result does not mean you don't have covid. Also, some new variants present with stomach issues, and don’t always have respiratory symptoms to go along with them. If you’ve got a stomach bug, it’s not a bad idea to test in a few days. If you do test positive on a rapid home test, it is a good idea to get a lab PCR test done as well, since insurance companies are turning down long-covid claims for people who don’t have lab records of being positive (info). It’s also a good idea to see if you qualify for paxlovid, which can decrease your risk of severe covid infection. Lastly, if you do catch covid it is important to rest as much as possible during your infection and in the weeks following. Pushing yourself too hard when you’re sick may increase your risk of long-covid (info). Many people report having mild symptoms initially, going back to work or exercising too soon, and tumbling into some pretty severe complications as a result.

Take care of yourself!

ETA: If you’re in the US, you can order 4 more free covid tests here: https://www.covid.gov/tests . Even if you don’t need them right now, it’s good to have some on hand since test supplies in stores get short when cases get high. It’s good to show the government there’s demand for them, too! The order form takes like 30 seconds.

You can find US testing sites here: https://www.hhs.gov/coronavirus/community-based-testing-sites/index.html

Also, via @dale-everyheart in the comments on the r/ECEProfessionals post, you can get covid testing, free telehealth for covid, and free paxlovid if you test positive here: test2treat.org. I believe only Americans are eligible, but I’m not 100% sure.

ETA2: Free testing in some more countries, via @stormgirl on the r/ECEProfessionals post

New Zealand https://covid19.govt.nz/testing-and-isolation/covid-19-testing/how-to-get-a-covid-19-test/

Australia https://www.health.gov.au/topics/covid-19/testing#where-to-get-a-test

UK https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/cov...-get-a-free-covid-19-rapid-lateral-flow-test/

Ireland https://www2.hse.ie/conditions/covid19/testing/get-tested/

Canada https://www.canada.ca/en/public-hea...infection/symptoms/testing/diagnosing.html#a2

ETA 3: I appreciate all the questions and interest. Unfortunately, I’ve been having a pretty bad chronic illness flare-up that makes it hard to sit or stay awake, so I’m not able to answer questions as quickly as I wish I was. I plan of providing more info as often as I am able, though. I have seen questions about the idea that “everyone is sick all the time,” which is obviously hyperbole, but I do plan to provide sources for my claim that illness (along with illness severity and death) have risen since the onset of the pandemic. Maybe bookmark this post and check back in a few days.

I also saw some questions about how much scientific backing there is towards the claim of lasting immune damage from covid, and I have written a detailed response in this comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/ScienceBasedParenting/s/JVkTjwrcXn
 
@7thunders Hi, T cell immunologist here. I appreciate the effort OP. You've clearly done a lot of reading, but you could afford to be a great deal more cautious about the level of confidence you're projecting about your claims.

For example, all the T cell information you have here is based on multiple secondary sources linking back to the same single study. This study does not address "perment" changes to T cell numbers at all. It also does not test for lymphopenia, nor does it test T cell responsiveness to non-covid stimuli post-infection.

So your immunology paragraph is, at best, a highly tentative hypothesis. I haven't gone through and read all the primary sources for all of this, but I suspect that all of this is best characterized as highly tentative hypotheses.

All these things are far more complex questions than anyone who hasn't completed a PhD is going to have a full appreciation for. It's easy to trick yourself into thinking things are simpler than they are, and to talk with much more confidence than you should.
 
@intrigued20030 Thank you. You said it much more clearly and far more kindly than I would've managed. I pretty much made up my mind after this, "As most people have noticed, childhood and adult illnesses have been way up since the start of the covid pandemic." No, I have not noticed. I have noticed the opposite. Thankfully, most developed nations keep these statistics and there is SO MUCH DATA. And the need to reference it is batted with an oh-by-the-way line. I just don't believe anything posted after that.
 
@traciethered This subreddit really has a lot of editorializing masquerading as “science”

I know parenting makes people crazy and anxious but there’s just so much bad info and incendiary rhetoric flung around here
 
@intrigued20030 I think as someone who qualifies this as research they themselves have done as a former ECE professional and found interesting, it’s not on OP to qualify that they’re not speaking on behalf of the medical community or with a PhD in immunology. I think a lot of us - especially with young children during/post-pandemic - are struggling with a burden of sickness we’ve never experienced before, and when we look for answers, a lot of scientists are saying things like- well the data doesn’t support that, yet. Ok. Then, as scientists, please do the research and figure this out. I also don’t see any large controlled studies supporting the “immunity debt” hypothesis, but a lot of scientists seem to be very comfortable offering that as the reason for why our kids - and us - have been so repeatedly sick the past couple of years.

As far as I can tell, there hasn’t been enough good research on either side - but now there’s data suggesting that past COVID does seem to increase the disease burden of RSV on infants (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10582888/#:~:text=For%20the%202022%20study%20population,to%201.55)%3B%20and%20among) and that, like other viruses, it increases the likelihood of fungal infections (https://libguides.mskcc.org/CovidImpacts/SecondaryFungal) because at least in part of impact on the immune system.

We know people in the LC community are documenting decrease in immune function (https://news.weill.cornell.edu/news...19-can-alter-long-term-immune-system-response) and that covid itself seems to affect just about every organ system reliant on blood vessels. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2#:~:text=Long%20COVID%20encompasses%20multiple%20adverse,POTS)12%20(Fig.%202

So, in the face of all this, I guess I think scientists and public health professionals and politicians should be the ones either pointing to the data that shows this isn't happening, or should advise a little more caution until they have that data in front of them. It does feel like because this is something that is being experienced most acutely among parents of young children, childcare providers and teachers - read, a lot women - there's been an awful lot of hand waving about this being some mixture of hysteria and "immunity debt" that we seem incapable of paying off.
 
@mynameisjames Suffice to say that there just aren't all the answers that any of us would like yet, but plenty of people are working hard to get them. I agree that the immunity debt hypothesis, and other hypotheses, should continue to be tested to explain the unusual respiratory virus epidemiology we've been seeing last 2 years. And I think that research is happening. These are not trivial questions to answer and it takes time.
 
@mynameisjames Agree 100%. Especially when the immunologist literally says "I haven't read the data but I suspect..." How about you read the data and then form an opinion. Because it absolutely bizarre to me that there is a mountain of research that none of these doctors are reading.

Edit: hahaha to the immunologist commenting "that's quite a link dump, and frankly I'm not going to read it"

Like scientists and researchers and doctors are literally the people who are supposed to be MOST OPEN to new info. But they're just going LALALALALA CANT HEAR YOU!
 
@intrigued20030 Sorry to post the same comment as I have in response to other commenters - just wanted to make sure that you saw the primary lit links in here.

We don't have a lot of detailed longitudinal data on post-Covid T cell recovery, but can estimate that most people recovering from Covid may have at least a couple weeks of lymphopenia/reduced immune function, which could be enough time to encounter new pathogens to which they are not as easily able to respond to, and 2) there are several lines of evidence that suggest that at least a subset of the population does experience persistent immune dysfunction resulting from Covid perturbations of NK/T cells and gut microbiota.

In response to your point re: testing for lymphopenia and T cell responsiveness to non-covid stimuli post-infection, this source is the best one I could find that had 6- and 12-month follow up.

A longitudinal study tracking 173 individuals found that T cell numbers and function did recover in most people after Covid by 6 months, but a subset of people exhibited persistent lower CD8+ T cell counts for months. Patients exhibited lower CD3+ T cell stimulation in response to a variety of viral antigens during acute Covid infection, and while functional response improved for most antigens at 6 months, responses remained significantly lower against adenovirus in people who had recovered from either mild or severe Covid.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/all.15372

And as an immunologist, I'm curious for your take on some of the changes in T cell communities/elevated exhaustion markers and how that might affect immune function. How long does it take the average person to recover T cell counts and function from different types of viral infections?

Covid perturbs T cell communities and T cell exhaustion markers can remain elevated for months. Perturbations in T cell communities include long-term changes in maturation and differentiation of NK and CD8+ T cells. This can lead to reduced activation in response to other pathogens, like fungal infections.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2022.931039/full

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2022.954985/full

https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/14/5/1082

https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/23/6/3374

Covid also perturbs human gut microbiota, which can regulate/modulate immune responses. This article proposes a model for how Covid infection could lead to gut dybiosis, which could theoretically also affect how individuals may respond to new infections: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41575-022-00698-4
 
@jeanjason0209 That first study does interestingly find that it's just older men who are lymphopenic, but it's impossible to know without more data if those guys were just lymphopenic before covid and that's why they got so sick.

In general, the textbook answer is that T cells return to normal about a month after infection resolution. But, in immunology it is always dangerous to generalize.

I'll link you a review that's fairly up to date about what's known about immune system changes post-covid.

Pro-tip: if you're not actively working in a niche of a field, it's usually better to just read the most up-to-date review article you can find rather than primary data. At least tp start.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9127978/
 
@intrigued20030 Appreciate the comment. As someone who tries to stay educated - Can you provide any studies showing longer term changes to T cell numbers or T cell responsiveness to non Covid post infection?

And if not- why do you think that is? I feel like there’s a lack of research being done on this.
 
@doingwhatjesusdid There is LOTS of research being done, but it's tough work. There is too much for me to suggest that either you or me try to review ourselves, but I'll link a review article here that covers a lot of what's known about immune system changes longer-term.

Pro-tip: In general, don't try to read individual papers. Read the latest review article you can find in a big journal to get a sense of what scientists know/don't know as a community.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9127978/
 
@7thunders While I think there is a ton to unpack here (and I applaud your research and stance) I think it’s also important to clarify that it was normal prepandemic for toddlers to contract 12 colds per year, let alone other illnesses like stomach bugs, strep, etc. While I do see the links between COVID and later immune issues, two factors complicate this picture somewhat:
  • baseline levels of illness among toddlers (and those who spend time with them) was and is high regardless. If others, like me, had kids during the pandemic during a period of markedly low illness (particularly if you were being cautious about COVID), it’s not clear what the “normal” benchmark would be and we may well think a level of illness is abnormal for our families when prepandemic it would have also been high and not a cause for concern
    • coming out of a widespread pandemic where people were focused on illness signals, the observer effect is absolutely in play. Where I would have commuted to work with a slight cold and not even considered myself “sick”, I now consider those illnesses, test for COVID and generally take more notice of them than I did prepandemic. This effect may also skew published data somewhat. Indeed, there are prominent researchers unpacking this, including measurement issues in our long COVID research.
To be clear - it’s obvious and notable that there are a sizable contingent of people experiencing post viral complications after COVID. It’s clear that repeated COVID infections will increase the risk, albeit not by how much. And it’s clear that common sense solutions like indoor air filtration, avoiding gatherings while ill and even masking can reduce the likelihood for us all of contracting COVID and other illnesses.

But it’s also possible the picture is not so dire as you paint. Which doesn’t mean don’t exercise those precautions - but also may not be as much of a cause for fear.
 
@guevaraj I'm totally just curious if the 12 colds a year was normal prior to widespread daycare usage. Did kids 50-100+ years ago get that many?
 
@bucj No idea! 100 years ago, I’d imagine kids were more likely to get sick/die due to things like poor sanitation. We know illnesses quickly swept through densely populated cities but the forced distance based on agricultural livelihoods likely meant kids living more rurally weren’t getting as sick.

50 years ago, so the early 70s, there was less travel in general so likely lower illness spread between communities. More kids did have stay at home parents but not all - even in the sixties, less than half of kids had a stay at home mom. So a lot of kids were in some form of non parental childcare though it may not have been organized daycare and could have looked more like extended family care. I’d expect illnesses may have traveled similarly, but perhaps there were different base rates — eg a higher share of the population now is immune compromised in some form, which increases the likelihood of viral mutations — which may mean more illnesses if kids are exposed to more mutations and can’t build durable immunity to each one.
 
@bucj 100+ years ago - probably not because they didn't live that long if they got seriously sick... thank you antibiotics! Survival bias is a thing.
 
@7thunders Very interesting thread. Anecdotally, I didn’t get sick very often pre pandemic and still don’t post pandemic. I wonder, too, if our awareness of being sick (and others) is higher now because of the pandemic, therefore it seems as if people are sick more often.
 
Back
Top