Community Debt and Empathy Debt (and Credibility Debt)

Thread by Dr. Christopher Leighton: 

Covid 19 didn't cause "immunity debt." It caused "community debt." 

Communities lost members, young and old, healthy and frail. Death rates climbed in 2022 as leaders ditched masks. Communities lost health care dollars because Ford pocketed billions of federal aid money. Communities lost education funding because Lecce decided a few hundred dollars to each parent (> $380 million) would somehow improve learning better than investing that money into the curriculum, schools, or education workers. Isn't that what the Minister of Education does?

Communities lost nurses and access to care. Ford used the notwithstanding clause to prevent collective bargaining! Bill 124 restricted pay to 1% per year. Fatigued and over worked, many nurses left the profession or changed jobs. Communities lost public health measures. Communities lost regional approaches to public health interventions. Section 22 orders suddenly ceased, and Medical Officers of Health will not disclose why. 

Communities lost the ability to curb Covid-19 transmission. Isolation was practically eliminated as was testing. Communities lost a  CMOH and MOH independent of of government interference as intended in the HPPA after recommendation from the SARS Commission: Spring of Fear, Honourable Mr. Justice Archie Campbell. The backroom workings are not yet clear - but we will learn the truth.  Communities lost rights guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for the second time in three years; Ford used the "notwithstanding clause" to set aside the freedom of association for CUPE Education workers. The right to strike is democratic. 

How much more are you willing to lose? The cost of staying silent is too great. We are living in an authoritarian state of sorts. The Premier is undermining democracy. Don't let him. 

Speak up. Strike if you must.

Farid Jalali goes down a different path,

It's not "immunity debt." It's "empathy debt." Say it like it is. We as a society don't give a shit about our children. Whether being gunned down, or falling sick with all hospital beds filled up. We. Don't Care. Adult lives matter more.  

ETA: Biology prof T. Ryan Gregory added,

"Immunity debt" is a new term invented and being pushed by folks with huge credibility debt who argued that COVID wouldn't harm kids and that we shouldn't try to mitigate transmission in schools. Of course they are going to blame masks and remote learning.

ETA: U.S. immunologist, Dr. Anthony Leonardi, who wrote his PhD thesis on T cells in 2017 while working for the U.S. National Institutes of Health, was featured in The Tyee, 

sounding alarms about T cell 'dysregulation' since the early days of the pandemic. . . . T cells are becoming hyperactivated by SARS-CoV-2 and are prematurely aging, harming organs, and becoming exhausted trying to rid the body of an immune-evasive virus. . . . All I have done is warn people and people find the warnings unpalatable. . . . Both SARS and MERS could overcome the defences of the immune system, and result in prolonged chronic illness that lasted years. . . . If previous infection dampens the immune system and does not strengthen it, it undermines the popular notion that we should let the virus rip. . . . [This] undermined the position that once you've been infected, you don't have to worry again.

The Tyee did a deep dive on six of Leonardi's claims and found them all to hold up to scrutiny:

1. "The virus was somehow causing the immune system to attack the internal organs. . . . The Journal of Clinical Investigation confirmed that changes in T-cell activation and exhaustion were notable in non-hospitalized patients. Moreover the evidence suggested 'a prolonged period of immune dysregulation' after infection."
2. "I fear a world where most of the aged succumb to complications of COVID. . . . because as we age, we don't produce many, if any, T cells... You can't turn the clock back on T cells. . . . A recent and prominent scientific paper confirmed that the age of 50 is indeed an inflection point for COVID deaths."
3. The pandemic made us more vulnerable to other infections, dubbed the "Leonardi Effect." "A Public Health Ontario brief warned earlier this year that 'a potential increase in acquired impaired immunity in the Ontario population could have significant impact on the incidence and associated burden of infectious diseases.'"
4. "If T cells are damaged by the first infection, then the second infection might not be beneficial and could in some populations drive the immune system into dysfunction. . . . repeated viral infections [of other viruses] didn't always boost or improve immunity. . . . We're seeing a T cell response that is late and over-responsive because COVID enters the body undetected until it's too late. . . . Growing evidence supports Leonardi . . . . People with second infections also showed significantly poorer T cell response to the first variant they were infected with."
5. It harms children. "'It is a virulent SARS virus not a common cold and has evolved to become more severe.' As such he argues for masks, better air filtration and vaccines for children. . . . Infecting an entire generation is irresponsible."
6. "Leonardi warned that herd immunity couldn't be achieved with coronaviruses. They weren't stable like polio or the measles virus but highly volatile and constantly mutating. Nor were they a one and done virus. . . . The scientific consensus now clearly supports Leonardi. Neither infections nor vaccines achieved herd immunity because of the immune evasive nature of the virus. Most scientists now regard the concept of herd immunity as a mirage."

And also this is circulating, but I can't find the original source or verification. It's all tied together, though: ending prevention of a fatal virus, ending human rights, destroying the Greenbelt, and making a very tiny group of people very rich for a short time. I'll never forget Jared Diamond's Collapse when he describes digs on collapsed civilizations and finding piles of bones next to the most ornate homes, with large animals at the bottom, then smaller and smaller animals, then rats, and, at the very top, human bones with the femurs broken so the marrow could be sucked out.