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> Other countries have experienced recent outbreaks. In late 2022 at least five European nations reported to the World Health Organization an increase in cases of invasive group A streptococcus (iGAS) disease, which includes STSS. The WHO said the rise in cases followed the end of Covid restrictions.
I find it difficult to disabuse myself of the notion that there are people who see this simple statement as justification to return to enforcing certain pandemic era countermeasures permanently as part of a "new normal"
What is the point of bringing up a unique point in time where confining everyone in their houses reduced interaction with this particular bacteria? The article paints those measures as if they were a good thing and now things have regressed.
People washed and disinfected their hands a lot more often and thoroughly during the pandemic. At least here in Germany. They stopped shaking hands, washed them thoroughly (at least twenty seconds, using soap) and disinfected them when entering or leaving stores. Now they shake hands again and the disinfectant is gone. Who knows how everyone is washing their hands today. It’s not far fetched to suspect that this behavior might have helped.
I got a totally different vibe: Japan is notoriously xenophobic and maintained extremely strict regulations on visitors that were far more stringent than western countries.
So the framing here sounds like a Japanese perspective: "we didn't want you to come, and we started to let you back in, and look what happened to us" which is probably a popular sentiment there.
it is absurd to suggest those measures were not a good thing, and factually inaccurate to say that the article expresses or implies any opinion about them whatsoever. it doesn’t.
it’s an article about a rise in cases. it mentions when the cases started rising.
To address a sibling commenter first: no, I don’t think any mention of covid is a political statement, that’d be absurd. We all experienced the mayhem, fear, and uncertainty together, and most of us, though sadly not all of us, made it out alive. It itself is not political.
But it is often made to be. I find the articles opening sentence is phrased in a way as to be invoking a boogeyman, not least to which is because covid restrictions in japan were relaxed two years ago. The phrasing implies a strongly direct correlation, rather than a more nebulous one where all diseases would increase by the same reduction in measures. The overt entanglement in the opening sentence feels like baiting a response by disingenuous or superfluous association. The article would have stood stronger on its own legs, I feel.
It’s possible people wash their hands less since COVID restrictions were lifted, or some other knock-on effect.
> … as if they were a good thing and now things have regressed.
Less “flesh-eating bacteria” in the world is probably always a good thing, independent of anything else.
What an interesting turn of phrase. In my mind, reducing interpersonal contact will obviously reduce interpersonal transmission of all infectious diseases. The policies surrounding covid reduced not just covid but also colds, flus, etc. That's a matter of obvious, well-understood cause&effect and strongly supported by the data.
But your reaction here is clearly and overtly political. Is the framing of the article "political framing" or is your kneejerk response "political framing?" Is it possible to mention covid policy without that being perceived as a political act, or is it merely taboo?
You just making up things in your head.
"Even a mild or asymptomatic infection can harm the immune system. It can make you susceptible to new diseases that might not have bothered you before, but now, with your weakened immune system, these new diseases can find a foothold and attack you. Also, conditions that may have been dormant or held in check in your body by your immune system could resurface now that it’s weakened – things like shingles, HIV, or a resurgence of herpes. We’re seeing resurgences of all those things in the general population. We’re also seeing a resurgence in measles, whooping cough, and polio — all these things that we thought we’d gotten rid of. Whooping cough cases have been exploding in the UK. Our mass herd immunity is weakened and those diseases are all coming up again.
Beyond that, getting a COVID infection can double your risk of heart attack, increase the risk of stroke by three times, and double the risk of diabetes. All these things happen as a result of your COVID infection, and they persist for as much as two years, even if you had a mild or even an asymptomatic infection."
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/from-long-co...
There's nothing political about public health measures (even if some try to argue as such).
Don't look up the latest science on asymptomatic reinfections unless you really want to find out more.