Rita Panahi: Our kids will pay the highest price for botched Covid response

Our children are paying the biggest price for the botched Covid response — with stunted academic development and mental health issues — but a new dark toll is emerging.

The median age of Covid-19 deaths in Australia is 86 but it’s our children who will pay the highest price in the long run.

Their academic and social development has been stunted, they’ve suffered a surge in serious mental health issues, including suicidal ideation, and we’ve saddled them with enormous debt which will take decades to pay off.

Among the many harms inflicted on children in the name of Covid safety has been a little phenomenon called “immunity debt” where one’s immune system does not develop normally against non-Covid viruses due to lockdown measures that result in reduced exposure to people, bacteria and germs.

Last month, immunity debt was blamed for a significant jump in the number of children, including desperately ill infants, admitted to hospital in New Zealand with potentially deadly respiratory conditions.

Covid lockdowns could actually make our kids sicker.

An exponential increase in respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) saw 969 cases recorded in a five-week period. There are typically about 1700 cases annually during the winter months, according to data collected by NZ’s Institute of Environmental Science and Research.

The outbreak has reportedly put considerable strain on a number of hospitals, with some postponing surgeries.

Middlemore Hospital’s children’s emergency department experienced its busiest day ever in June with 140 patients in 24 hours. The surge in sick kids saw the hospital convert
a children’s playroom into a clinical space.

In a paper released in May on “the immune debt of the COVID-19 pandemic in childhood”, a team of French doctors concluded that the lack of immune stimulation during lockdowns induces an “immunity debt which could have negative consequences when the pandemic is under control ...The longer these periods of ‘viral or bacterial low-exposure’ are, the greater the likelihood of future epidemics.
“This is due to a growing proportion of ‘susceptible’ people and a declined herd immunity in the population.”

Putting it more simply is microbiologist and immunologist Professor Brett Finlay: “Because of the whole Covid lockdown, kids are being immune-deprived and their microbes are being screwed up. So their immune systems are a bit screwed up”.

Harvard medical school professor and infectious disease expert Dr Martin Kulldorff has been critical of lockdowns saying they ultimately do more harm than good.

“Public health is about all health outcomes, not just a single disease like Covid-19. It is important to also consider harms from public health measures,” he wrote.

That’s a public health principle our bureaucrats and politicians would do well to remember.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA, YOU’VE LOST THE PLOT

Australia is becoming known around the world as a country that has “lost the plot”. Videos of chief health officers across Australia saying ridiculous things regularly go viral with international audiences astounded by the “health advice” about online shopping, sock drawers, touching footballs and the dangers of being “friendly’’.

Now, another sign of madness from possibly our maddest state, South Australia.

Read the opinion article in full here.

Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist