Immunity Debt: Debunk

Getting old is not just about the number of years you've lived. It's also about how many times you've gotten sick.

Some claim the rise in winter infections has been caused by the reduction of seasonal bugs during lockdowns. But experts are sceptical about these oversimplified explanations

Cleaning up the hygiene hypothesis

Why licking lamposts in Winter is a bad idea

Hi, it’s Immanual in New York. As respiratory illnesses spread across the US, an unfamiliar medical term has been cropping up in some media coverage. I’d like to tell you a little more about it, but first...

There is no evidence that an individual is worse off for having avoided earlier infection

Infectious disease experts say term and its surrounding narrative are dangerous and can promote Covid-19 misinformation

At the beginning of the fifth season of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, we the audience are introduced to a character, Dawn, we have never seen before. Intriguingly, every character

Photo by Gustavo Fring via pexels.As the number of hospitalized children with influenza, RSV, COVID-19 and other infections continues to soar,…

“Immunity debt” can explain this year’s eye-popping cold and flu season — but it can also be dangerously misinterpreted.

“I don’t necessarily like ‘immunity debt’ becoming a coined phrase,” Dr. Sarah Combs, an emergency medicine doctor at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., told Fortune.

Immunity debt — the idea that our immune systems become weak if we're not regularly exposed to pathogens — is a popular (and wrong) conception of how the body works

The hygiene hypothesis says exposure to germs helps kids develop healthy immune systems. But many viruses didn’t circulate as widely during the pandemic. Are there downsides to missed infections?

Immunity debt is an attractive concept. But there is little evidence that it's causing the resurgence in pediatric respiratory infections.