It's not just in your imagination: people have been getting sick more often over the past few years.
The question, of course, is what could be causing it.
A reader sent me an interesting article from Bloomberg last week that runs through possible explanations, but there's no doubt about the phenomenon itself:
At least 13 communicable diseases, from the common cold to measles and tuberculosis, are surging past their pre-pandemic levels in many regions, and often by significant margins, according to analysis by Bloomberg News and London-based disease forecasting firm Airfinity Ltd.
The resulting research, based on data collected from more than 60 organisations and public health agencies, shows that 44 countries and territories have reported at least one infectious disease resurgence that’s at least ten times worse than the pre-pandemic baseline.
Then we read this: "The theory of immunity debt has become a popular, if controversial, explanation for the post-COVID surge in illnesses. It basically means that pandemic lockdowns offered an artificial layer of insulation from routine pathogens but left people more vulnerable when the world reopened."
Sounds plausible. But then we read this, which makes us wonder: what else might have damaged the immune system?
If immunity debt were the only factor, the countries that lifted pandemic restrictions two or three years ago should be caught up by now, and they're not. The waves of illnesses keep coming.
Canada, Japan, Singapore and Germany – places lauded for their successful efforts to contain Covid — are now seeing unusual levels of excess mortality, said Christopher Murray, Washington-based director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. In contrast, places that failed to control the spread of COVID, like Bulgaria, Romania and Russia, are now back to pre-pandemic mortality rates.
(I am charitably omitting the part where the authors suggest that climate change -- I am not joking -- could also have something to do with it.)
Still, here we have a mainstream source admitting that the lockdowns caused problems of their own, and that there is a yet-unexplained problem with excess mortality, particularly in places that were supposedly successful against Covid. I am sure readers of this publication have a suspicion about the excess mortality problem. But the point is, if the mainstream ever does give you the truth it's always years too late and hedged all around by caveats and falsehoods.
This is why I have been so consistently supportive of the work of an American physician who goes by the pseudonym Doc Anarchy, and who publishes Renegade Health magazine.
We all know why he has to operate under a pseudonym. If he revealed his identity the establishment would try to ruin his career. Nice people.
In Renegade Health, Doc brings together the wisdom of all kinds of accomplished physicians on a wide range of topics where it is hard to find the truth.
I've come to know Doc and I can tell you from experience that he is a good man. I've seen him help ordinary people who have been up against the full force of some form or other of medical madness.
Publishing a truth-telling health magazine is not the path to riches. It's an enormous commitment. And Doc is doing it not for personal recognition, since he doesn't even put his own name on it. He's doing it because he couldn't live with himself if he didn't.
So I would urge you to check out the just-released summer issue of Renegade Health, both because you yourself will benefit and also because a guy like Doc deserves to know that people out there support what he's trying to do.
We have a lot of people who sit back and complain and then don't actually do anything, or who confine themselves to writing indignant letters to the editor.
Doc, by contrast, has put himself out there for us, and given us an excellent product.
Not to mention, because my subscribers have been so good to him, Doc gives 10% off with coupon code WOODS (the code should be applied already if you use the link below).