Covid 19 Part XXXV-956,720 ROI (5,952 deaths) 452,946 NI (3,002 deaths) (08/01) Read OP

There's a lot of leaps and jumps in that post.

Kids were getting exposed to colds and RSV. Kids were getting exposed to Covid. They were in school. They were in creches. These are far from sterile environments.

Look back at comments on boards and news articles about Septembers and Januaries before this one and you'll see surges in tests, sniffles. Some of it covid. Some of it other viruses.

It's not that their immune systems are weaker fundamentally. It's that this could be first time encountering a flu. And there are more kids who haven't encountered a flu. That's a different thing. No evidence that their 'first time' response is weaker.

There were very significant uptakes of flu vaccines, which in itself is an exposure to a virus which triggers the immune system.

You can get flu year on year, different strains, so the extent of any prior immunity from one strain to another is weak.

This was December 2019, flu worse\earlier than in previous year.

Look back at late 2019, pre covid, and you'll see posts about an especially bad cough and chest infection going round.

Similarly, if Strep A was bad in 2017 for that reasons of natural variation, why does lockdowns have to be the reason why it is bad now?

So extent of this 'immunity debt' is very much debateable, as the linked articles show.

And even if immunity debt is playing a significant factor in this season, that does not necessarily show that the covid reaction was "over the top", given the alternative. Let more people catch and die of covid last year so we have less bad flu cases this year?

It's because China has been isolated to a large extent, it's a precautionary concern about possible unknown variants. Especially given how guarded China is with data.

Whereas Europe India have been in more contact.

Did I hear or read somewhere that the latest variant originated in the US?

Or maybe nobody trusts the data coming from China on anything to do with coronavirus. That's what you do with a great bunch of lads who weren't open with information back in 2020 and haven't changed their spots.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/biden-raises-concern-over-chinas-covid-response-after-who-questions-data-2023-01-05/

They have Omicron but what else might they have?

Not every country is equally capable. China given it's size and that it had isolated, is more capable of having hitherto unknown variants.

if they have other variants that can compete with Omicron then the bulk of people in the world will get it outside of a long term level five lockdown. It has been proven that no other measure can prevent such covid outbreaks infecting every country. The minor restrictions against China are politically motivated, they cannot possibly be intended to stop variants.