@lamourhjackson Same here. We had a constant stream of illnesses brought home from school last year, and my oldest kid had already missed 18 days due to illness. So far this year she's missed 2 days for illness, and it was a mild cold, nothing crazy.
Why is Everyone Sick all the Time?
- Thread starter 7thunders
- Start date
@lamourhjackson Same here. We were sick a lot last year and have been much better off this year.
@7thunders Since I’m seeing some comments here posting anecdotal evidence saying they’ve been getting sick less recently, I feel compelled to chime in with my anecdotal evidence to the contrary.
In January 2022 I had my first daughter; in April 2022 I tested positive for COVID for the first and only time since; in June of 2022 I developed psoriasis for the first time, and in 2023 I’ve had 11 colds so far.
I don’t know how related these things are, but the 11 colds this year seems pretty wild to me. I’ve never been sick so often in my life, even when I was a child. Interestingly my daughter has not been sick as often as I have - she’s only had 4 colds this year and in her entire life (and she didn’t catch COVID when I had it). She’s not in day care and while I have caught some of my colds from her, obviously not most of them. And I’m not in a position when I’m unusually exposed to illness - I’m a stay at home mom who mostly goes out to the grocery store and the park.
So it’s definitely true for me that I’m getting sick more often. It wouldn’t be my instinct to directly link it to having had COVID, especially since my frequent infections started well after my initial infection. But also I did not test for COVID during every cold I’ve had this year, and when I did I often took a rapid test on day 1 or 2 of symptoms, which I know is not the most accurate. So I could have had a second case of COVID this year without knowing it.
And all in all I wouldn’t draw many conclusions from the anecdotal evidence in Reddit comments. I’d put way way way more weight into study results.
In January 2022 I had my first daughter; in April 2022 I tested positive for COVID for the first and only time since; in June of 2022 I developed psoriasis for the first time, and in 2023 I’ve had 11 colds so far.
I don’t know how related these things are, but the 11 colds this year seems pretty wild to me. I’ve never been sick so often in my life, even when I was a child. Interestingly my daughter has not been sick as often as I have - she’s only had 4 colds this year and in her entire life (and she didn’t catch COVID when I had it). She’s not in day care and while I have caught some of my colds from her, obviously not most of them. And I’m not in a position when I’m unusually exposed to illness - I’m a stay at home mom who mostly goes out to the grocery store and the park.
So it’s definitely true for me that I’m getting sick more often. It wouldn’t be my instinct to directly link it to having had COVID, especially since my frequent infections started well after my initial infection. But also I did not test for COVID during every cold I’ve had this year, and when I did I often took a rapid test on day 1 or 2 of symptoms, which I know is not the most accurate. So I could have had a second case of COVID this year without knowing it.
And all in all I wouldn’t draw many conclusions from the anecdotal evidence in Reddit comments. I’d put way way way more weight into study results.
@misty0408 Yes to your last sentence! You have a major confounder here, you had a kid! They are huge illness vectors, it makes sense you’re suddenly getting sick more w a kid in the house! This is why we need large studies to draw conclusions to account for confounding factors 
2the1whojudgesjustly
New member
@2the1whojudgesjustly My child stays at home with me and still gets sick all the time. There are viruses everywhere, my ped said (as others have posted) to expect 12 colds per season for kids even those that don’t go to daycare. The person I replied to is getting sick by living in the world the same way kids do, only the kids don’t have a mature immune system. I’m just saying the reason studies are necessary is because you can never observe the individual counterfactual to know how sick they would be with/without a kid but having a kid is a huge confounding factor here you can’t just do a pre/post analysis at the individual level.
@2the1whojudgesjustly Most people with toddlers take them places. Those places have illness. Playground, library, ymca, mall, mommy and me classes. I stay at home with my twins but we don’t literally stay at home 24/7
2the1whojudgesjustly
New member
c4ccheyenne
New member
@c4ccheyenne YES this too!!! Having kids is a huge confounding factor for so many reasons
@misty0408 It might just be related to the psoriasis which we believe is T-cell mediated. I developed psoriasis in 2016 (also have cousins with it so maybe genetic component combined with stress set it off) and I get way more sick and more frequently than my husband does. This was all years before my first born in May 2022 and catching covid in April 2022. On the bright side, being pregnant GREATLY reduced my psoriasis symptoms. As a side note, catching HFM this summer gave me the worst psoriasis flare I’ve ever experienced. Felt like my patches were on fire.
singlestuggler
New member
@misty0408 Anecdotally, I had my first child in December of 2020, two weeks after getting Covid for the first time, so I of course attributed the high level of sickness to having a young child rather than the Covid. I have nothing to compare it to prior to Covid, except that I rarely got sick before having kids and now get sick frequently. My mother-in-law had a bad case of Covid and now every time she gets sick she has a long-lasting fever. She finally got diagnosed with bronchiectasis, but when I Googled the disease it says Covid is unlikely to cause it. I'm not sure that it even explains all of the issues she's been having. It's definitely frustrating. My toddler has had Covid once, and I don't think I've noticed him getting sick more often since then, but it is scary to think that it could impact him for the rest of his life, or if not him, other kids his age.
@7thunders Thank you so much for this. I never stopped masking, not because I’m immunocompromised but because I want to avoid these long term impacts. People have their head buried so deep in the sand on the harm of covid
@7thunders The study you linked to on immune damage, and the study linked from the Time article, both showed a different immune response to the COVID vaccine before / after infection with COVID, not any general immune damage. Are there studies which show a more generalized impaired immune response? Or is this just a different response to COVID vaccination?
Especially in the actual journal article in Immunity, they're very clear that the study is focusing on T cell responses to COVID vaccination, not a more generalized assessment of immune function. They also found that even in those who hadn't had COVID, the immune response to the mRNA COVID vaccine is not the same as other vaccines, with some types of T cells showing a delayed / extended response.
Overall, I am not seeing the clear evidence that "the huge uptick we’re seeing in all kinds of illnesses is likely a sign of widespread immune damage due to covid". If you have studies showing, say, a lower response to the flu vaccine after COVID infection, especially 3+ months after infection, I would be much more concerned.
Especially in the actual journal article in Immunity, they're very clear that the study is focusing on T cell responses to COVID vaccination, not a more generalized assessment of immune function. They also found that even in those who hadn't had COVID, the immune response to the mRNA COVID vaccine is not the same as other vaccines, with some types of T cells showing a delayed / extended response.
Overall, I am not seeing the clear evidence that "the huge uptick we’re seeing in all kinds of illnesses is likely a sign of widespread immune damage due to covid". If you have studies showing, say, a lower response to the flu vaccine after COVID infection, especially 3+ months after infection, I would be much more concerned.
jeanjason0209
New member
jeanette66
New member
@7thunders This is interesting. I was sick all the time with a 2.5 yo emerging from Covid isolation into daycare. The whole year of 2022 was brutal in terms of illnesses, and it didn’t help that I had a second baby that year. But, this fall I have noticed that we are not getting sick as much, and when we do we seem to fight it off faster. And I was thinking, ok, great, we’ve retrained our immune systems post lock down. I have noticed that I am now not getting sick when my kids get sick. So your observation that everyone else is still getting sick more was surprising to me, because my friends and family have also observed that things are better. Note that I have also never tested positive for Covid, though I assume we must have had it at some point, but most of my friends and extended family have. However all of them got Covid after being vaccinated, so maybe that lessened the impact?
@jeanette66 Same anecdotal experience here. We came out of COVID lockdown with our son starting daycare and I was sooo sick almost every time he caught something. The people around me also were constantly sick. This year seems like this has improved (not necessarily for my friends whose babies started daycare this fall, but I assume this is just the norm regardless of COVID lockdowns).
So I was also extremely surprised by ops statement that people are getting sick way more than before COVID.
So I was also extremely surprised by ops statement that people are getting sick way more than before COVID.
chriscrossan
New member
@jeanette66 Yes, my anecdotal experience is similar.
I had a baby in 2021 who entered daycare that winter. We were all sick constantly the winter of 2021-2022 (but never with COVID). Then I caught COVID (flu-like case) in September 2022, and that was the last time I was sick. As a family, we were much less sick the winter of 2022-2023 and since then.
I feel like our friends and family are similar. So it's just interesting that different people are having such different experiences!
I had a baby in 2021 who entered daycare that winter. We were all sick constantly the winter of 2021-2022 (but never with COVID). Then I caught COVID (flu-like case) in September 2022, and that was the last time I was sick. As a family, we were much less sick the winter of 2022-2023 and since then.
I feel like our friends and family are similar. So it's just interesting that different people are having such different experiences!
keepthesoninyoureyes
New member
@jeanette66 Our kiddo started daycare in the summer of 2021 and we were sick for a full year, at least two viruses a month I would guess. Culminating with COVID (not from daycare) when I was 32 weeks pregnant with my second. Since then, even with two kids in daycare, I have only been sick twice this year and one was norovirus.
Our youngest got COVID at 11 weeks old (and prenatally) and she has by far been our healthier kid.
We vaccinated as recommended and such but if you just went by my experience I would correlate getting COVID with a better immune response. I don't actually think that, I suspect we finally got all the major daycare illnesses and my second kid just must be genetically a little more robust than my first.
Our youngest got COVID at 11 weeks old (and prenatally) and she has by far been our healthier kid.
We vaccinated as recommended and such but if you just went by my experience I would correlate getting COVID with a better immune response. I don't actually think that, I suspect we finally got all the major daycare illnesses and my second kid just must be genetically a little more robust than my first.
@jeanette66 What are you doing to not get sick? Summer was fine, but my kids and I have had 3 different bugs (cold/flu) back to back such that we've only had a few days of November so far when none of is were sick. At least one of us has been sick nearly everyday since before Halloween.