Health officials were quick to blame COVID for mysterious cases of severe liver disease that appeared earlier this year in children all over the world. It looks like they were wrong.
The BBC reports:
The two teams of researchers, from London and Glasgow, say infants exposed later than normal – because of Covid restrictions – missed out on some early immunity to:
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- adenovirus, which normally causes colds and stomach upsets
- adeno-associated virus two, which normally causes no illness and requires a coinfecting “helper” virus – such as adenovirus – to replicate
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Scientists have ruled out any connection with coronavirus or Covid vaccines.
One of the investigators, Prof Judith Breuer, an expert in virology, at University College London and Great Ormond Street Hospital, said: “During the lockdown period when children were not mixing, they were not transmitting viruses to each other.
“They were not building up immunity to the common infections they would normally encounter.
“When the restrictions were lifted, children began to mix, viruses began to circulate freely – and they suddenly were exposed with this lack of prior immunity to a whole battery of new infections.”
The BBC also included this heartbreaking quote from the mom of a little boy named Noah who needed a liver transplant and will be on medication for the rest of his life:
Add this to the full ledger of lockdown harms.