Hepatitis outbreak in children

[MumbleCrumbs]

I'm currently really quite unwell with Covid and not sleeping very well so please be gentle, but is anyone else really worried about the reports of this hepatitis outbreak in children now being monitored by the WHO? It seems to have gained traction over the last few days and lots of reports coming out about it now. I know very little about hepatitis but I know its quite rare to see such severe cases in children. Could Covid be the cause? I'm just feeling really quite worried about it and so sad for these poor children and their families, how horrendous after we've all just come through a pandemic .

For adults if we were seeing this effect, the lockdown / social distancing theory might make more sense.

But really it needs a study on the exposure of children who are suffering this side effect and whether they've been at home for long periods or in school / nursery as normal since 2021. And yes, nurseries were open in the 2021 lockdown.

Not read beyond this yet, so might have been pointed out, but the bit about the hypothesis isn't a quote from Dr Chand, and could easily have been penned by the article writer.

@AMindOfMyOwn If we didn’t build any immunity (t-cells etc) then this would render vaccines useless. (Which isn’t true).

Research hasn’t shown anything (as it’s early days and can’t predict a future immune response 10 years down the line.

Yes people are catching Covid multiple times and each time they will be building some immunity (this immune response will vary from
person to person - hence some people never catching Covid and some catching it multiple times).

Delta offered very little protection against Omicron yet Omicron offers good protection (immunity) against delta and Omicron.

It’s a novel virus it will take a few years to settle down but you can’t believe we have no immune response to it after vaccines and infections. That’s not how the immune system works. I’ve been a close contact many, many times. I’ve caught it once.

There’s lots we don’t know but saying we all have zero immunity is just plain wrong.

But yes we will all catch Covid multiple times and our children will be exposed every year. It will not be a problem for them in years to come.

@theemperorhasnoclothes if you can’t understand the difference between your children going to school and mixing and babies that were born in 2020/21 who missed all those social interactions in the first few formative years then there’s no point in continuing.

The scientists are taking about babies and toddlers not school age children (for the 6th time!!)

You’ve had posters on here describe what having a baby in lockdown was like. You probably have no idea if you have school age children so why you keep applying your situation to this I have no idea. It’s irrelevant.

I’d love to see the research on how catching covid many times will improve our immunity to it.
do you have anything you could share on that @Delatron ? From researchers, not newspaper articles (journalists often aren’t able to read research and relay it properly)

@kittensinthekitchen It was quoted in many different papers/news sites so they must have all misquoted her. Terrible journalism if so.

And all the other scientists and experts I linked to must have been misquoted too. I guess they’ll be in contact to correct this as it would be very damaging for a scientist to be misquoted in the press.

Fwiw I think people’s experience of having a baby during lockdown will vary quite a lot.
Apart from the first year (of the baby’s life) when most mothers will have taken ML - with no baby groups, less meeting up with family and friends etc… - I think different people will have different experiences.

Apart form the first lockdown, I never stopped work. If my dcs had been little, they would have been at nursery regardless of a lockdown or not.
People who worked form home or were furlough would obviously have had a different experience.

I think this is true regardless of the age and there hasn’t been a uniform experience of the last two years where everyone did X and Y and no one did A and B.

@AMindOfMyOwn So you don’t think vaccines work then (they work in the same principle as the immune response?) there’s loads of data out there about immune response to Covid and t-cells and antibodies. If we didn’t have an immune response there would be no drop in cases? We’d all just get it over and over every month or so? We know antibodies wane but the t-cell research isn’t there as it’s very expensive to test for. Some studies look very promising though.

They don’t know how long antibodies and t-cells last (for SARS they lasted 18 years and counting) because it’s a novel virus and we are only 2 years in to this. So obviously the data isn’t there yet.

Maybe some people with a weaker immune response will get Covid every year. Some people with a good immune response will never catch it.

But just to be clear, you are claiming that as a population nobody will have any immune response to Covid either through a vaccine or infection rendering this a permanently novel virus?

if so, I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous.

Actually that has happened before, including with covid.

Really funny situation where you end up with research articles quoting a newspaper article as a references (fwiw that would be a sin in any other case!) because somehow the hypothesis has taken a life of its own and is now seen as THE truth Wo ever having any ground…..

Also journalists often misquote researcher or take little bits out of context. That’s why reading the research is important (or reading the critique of the research by other researchers if you can’t critically read those papers - which I often can’t)

If anyone has Twitter, I recommend following Anthony J Leonardi PhD MS. He’s a T cell expert

Social distancing across the population means your personal experience doesn’t matter. There were just far less bugs and viruses flying around because we were all mixing far less. Even if a baby went to nursery they wouldn’t have been as exposed to as many viruses. The mothers wouldn’t have been mixing at baby toddler groups to pass anything on... it’s the knock in effect of social distancing in an entire population.

Not just ‘well I went to work and my baby went to nursery therefore this hypothesis is wrong’ very short sighted.

@Useyourfork
Thank you, I’ve been hunting for research on this and it’s lacking.

I believe t-cells (and b-cells) are the key to long term immunity to this not antibodies (as everyone focuses on).

Ill be surprised if we have zero t-cell response to Covid. It will vary obviously person to person.

@AMindOfMyOwn

Unbelievable that so many scientists and experts in this field were all misquoted on the same day.

Imagine if they’d all come out saying they thought it was to do with Covid. And I said ‘well they must all have been misquoted’. I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.....

@Delatron btw you are looking for a fight and putting words in my mouth that I have never said.
Not fun. And says much more about you than it does about me.

I only asked if you had research showing that repeated infection improves immunity. Because I don’t think there is anything ‘obvious’ about covid.
So can you point me towards it?

@AMindOfMyOwn Can you link to the research that shows ‘immunity disappears rapidly after infection’ because this would also mean vaccines didn’t work...

You do know that the immune response is different for each individual? So there will be no research to show long term immune response yet. Since this has only been around for 2 years.

Loads of research showing recent Omicron infections protect against former strains of Covid? Again they don’t have the long term data because we are 2 years in and only 4 months from Omicron . Google t-cells and Covid. It’s all fascinating, I’d recommend you read up.

The research may not be there on long term immunity (how can it???) but if we built zero immunity we would see a lot more illness over and over again infinity. We’d all be getting Covid every time we went out. The cases would never drop...

Immune systems are fascinating and complex.

Can you link to the research that shows ‘immunity disappears rapidly after infection’ because this would also mean vaccines didn’t work...

Yes that will be all the research showing that we need boosters because efficiency of vaccines drops after 3 months.
Same with immunity linked to having caught covid.

Do you want me to link to those or are they ‘obvious’ seeing that we are now on our second lot of boosters?

OP it is worrying but the overall numbers are still very small indeed, despite it being a big increase. It’s desperately sad for the families involved and I find myself keeping an extra eye on my DC, but the risk for any individual child is still very low.

@AMindOfMyOwn Do we all need boosters though? I’ve not been called up?
Yes please do link to the research that the entire population needs to be boosted every 3 months.

It’s the vulnerable and elderly because yes for them they don’t provide as good IMMUNE response. Their antibodies wane quicker and potentially they don’t produce as good a long term t-cell response.

Incidentally though they think the reason vaccines appear to be protective again severe disease is due to the t-cell response and not the antibody response (which we know wanes.

That is why the recommendation is there. It’s not a one size fits all but antibodies from vaccines to wane quickly for some people.

Like I said the immune system is complex. Some people appear to age natural ‘immunity’ to Covid due to a previous Coronovirus. Hence they can live with people and never catch it. This is not luck it’s an immune response.

I feel the thread is being derailed but it’s untrue to say for everyone there will be no immunity to Covid very quickly after infection.

Have natural immunity

I'd love to see this too. It's contrary to all the research I've read.

Hilariously (or tragically depending on your pov) some anti-lockdown zealots are now switching to blame alcohol gel for children having hepatitis. I really do wish there was a way to crack down on all the disinformation and quack science. Social media needs to find a way to police it and the bots and the paid posters.

As for science reporting, there are massive variables in the quality and standard of reporting. It's always worth remembering the agenda, funding and politics behind any title. Or trying to read the original research paper. There are a few papers online about the hepatitis situation but some aren't peer reviewed yet.

Anti-lockdown zealots? I’m guessing some
people loved being locked down in their middle class bubbles getting Ocado deliveries.

I am actually one of those! But I’m not so selfish and short sighted to not understand the devastating effect endless lockdowns have had on our children and babies. Proud to be an anti-lockdown zealot. (I supported the first one for a brief period).

As for the hand gel argument. There’s a ton of research out there showing children growing up in a sterile bubble is very bad for their immunity. Obviously handgel doesn’t cause hepatitis but the use of too much anti-bac stuff including over use of antibiotics/ too much sterilising can lead to super bugs and antibody resistance. The science is there.

As for this situation they are still looking in to it.

I hope all those experts and scientists know they were misquoted in the press yesterday.

Quite a bit or research out there about t-cell response and Covid. it’s actually quite encouraging.

Ive seen the research showing antibodies wane but not that we will not build any long term immunity? Can you link?

Obviously because we are 2 years in there won’t be any...

My children were off school from March 2020 until September 2020 and then from the start of the Christmas holidays 2020 until March 2021. A lot longer than 4.5 months!

@DaisyQuakeJohnson what is wrong with disagreeing with lockdown measures?
And what is wrong with free speech?

For goodness sake. There is a type of hepatitis about which is causing 10% of children who contract it to require liver transplants - yes liver transplants - and you are arguing like this!!

I am scared. We won't know the cause until one is established, but something is going on. I trust the scientists (not the government or politics). I just hope some answers are found soon. It's extremely concerning.

I know adenoviruses can be nasty. There have been a few nasty strains / outbreaks of adenovirus in the US in previous years if you look it up.

Could be long term affects of covid infection. Don't see how that's not plausible to some, given it's well known that viruses can trigger or cause damage long term (hpv and cancer, epstein barr and MS etc etc..)

Could be that lockdowns have caused 'normal' adenoviruses to become more severe.

We just don't know yet.