A GP based in Gaoth Dobhair, Donegal, has claimed that one of the reasons for the current prevalence of streptococcus and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is that children in particular were not mixing with one another during the period of the school closures that were part of the Covid-19 lockdown.
Dr. Tony Delap told Nuacht Raidío na Gaeltachta this afternoon that the fact that children were confined in that manner meant that they were not coming into contact with the more common viruses and that this has increased their vulnerability to potentially harmful strains.
This was reported this time last year by Ben Scallan for Gript but it is an aspect of the restrictions that both the medical authorities and the state are coy about addressing. While the consequences of contacting RSV are generally mild, there has already been two reported death from the invasive iGAS streptococcus strain in Belfast and another of a four year old child confirmed yesterday by the HSE. There have also been cases of scarlet fever which is a form of streptococcus A.
The extent to which the school closures and the restrictions on other forms of interaction for children may have had a negative impact on their overall development is a sensitive subject. That isolation has potentially damaging affects on the development of a child’s immune system is generally accepted. As is the fact that deaths of young children from Covid-19 were almost statistically insignificant.