Could Covid-19 also be blamed for the increased frequency and severity of colds and flu? Has it damaged our ability to fight off infections?
Northland emergency doctor Gary Payinda said some viruses, which used to cause barely a sniffle in healthy adults, were now putting people in hospital.
"We're now seeing your typical regular healthy middle-aged person presenting to ED with bad cases of RSV. And that's pretty novel for us," Payinda said.
He suspected #Covid may have damaged people's immunity in subtle ways that fell below the threshold to qualify as long Covid.
"Employers are talking about the inordinate numbers of employees that they have out sick due to repeated respiratory infection. Yet they're doing almost nothing to protect their employees from repeated respiratory infection.
"...it's not a good idea to subject yourself to unnecessary repeat infections from something that could do short and long-term damage to your body."
