Public health officials in Kansas are wondering why a spike in Covid infections has been accompanied by a spike in tuberculosis infections.
Once again, I need to remind people that Coronavirus infections tend to compromise their victim's immune systems for a long time, perhaps forever.
People try to ignore this, but we saw this with RSV, and Acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), MPox, etc.
I would also note that Measles infections have a similar effect, wiping out prior vaccine acquired immunity.
It's Covid, and it ain't over:
As the Kansas and Missouri medical communities prepare for respiratory illness season, health officials grapple with an early COVID-19 infection spike and higher-than-normal tuberculosis infections in Wyandotte County.
COVID positivity rates have been steadily increasing in Kansas, Missouri and across the country since July. The increase is higher than last summer’s rates and similar to the surge in infections seen this January, doctors said during a Friday morning medical update from the University of Kansas Health System.………
However, the level of COVID-19 activity detected in wastewater systems throughout Kansas is on the rise, as is the case regionally and nationally, according to the channel. Monitoring wastewater can offer early warning signs that infections are increasing or decreasing in a given community without relying on whether people present with symptoms, according to the CDC’s website.
………
Kansas has recorded 82 confirmed cases of active tuberculosis this year, which is almost double last year’s total of 46 cases. All of the active cases are being treated to limit the spread, Jill Bronaugh, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, said in an email. More than half of this year’s cases, 57, originated in Wyandotte County, and six were reported from Johnson County.
“TB is an infectious disease that most often affects the lungs and is caused by a type of bacteria,” Bronaugh said. “It spreads through the air when infected people cough, speak, or sing.”
Two people have died from tuberculosis in Kansas this year. A cause for the increase this year has not been identified. Bronaugh said the state and county health departments are working with the CDC to monitor and prevent the spread of tuberculosis.
I know that I am an engineer, not a public health expert or a doctor, dammit,* but it's pretty clear that the damage has something to do with the latest, and still active pandemic.
Efforts to dismiss this Covid as "Over" or "Endemic" serve only to interfere with efforts to remediate the spread of the disease, and make the problem worse.
Not only are there spikes in many contagious diseases, but in cancer in young adults.
It's Covid.
Wear your f%$#ing mask.
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