Deadly outbreak of children’s hepatitis linked to lockdown

telegraph.co.uk

11 pointshanoz3 comments

I am very anti-lockdown and anti-covid measures, so at some level I support the narrative because I believe the overreaction has done more harm than good.

I'm still suspicious of this though. If this was something that had increased, sure, but isn't this essentially a new phenomenon? Pre-covid, wouldn't chance or germapobic parents, or some other circumstance have led to this happening from time to time? Or was it just so rare that is was under the radar. Anyway, the story presented didn't convince me the lockdowns are the cause.

As I understand it it's not so much a brand new phenomenon, but rather a marked increase in the background rate, with the UK having a normal full year's worth of such cases in this calendar year already.

I am inclined to agree with your scepticism though, despite sharing your analysis of lockdown harm generally, however there isn't any better leading theory so far, and the geographical distribution does seem to have a certain correlation with the places which went in for harder lockdowns... Spain, Italy, France, UK (disproportionately Scotland). Sweden is notably absent.

I imagine we'll see a similar spike in serious influenza cases this year for similar reasons.

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