I do wonder if there are long-term affects from sheltering our immune systems for extended periods.
Now, I’m still in favor of wearing masks in some particularly high-risk places. And absolutely supported masks in the earlier days (until vaccines were readily available & common).
But by not getting exposure to the regular tiny amounts of bacteria and viruses that float around from other people (our body deals with quickly and we never feel sick), do we know anything about the long term affects of that on the immune system? Genuinely curious because I couldn’t find anything.
Now, I’m still in favor of wearing masks in some particularly high-risk places. And absolutely supported masks in the earlier days (until vaccines were readily available & common).
But by not getting exposure to the regular tiny amounts of bacteria and viruses that float around from other people (our body deals with quickly and we never feel sick), do we know anything about the long term affects of that on the immune system? Genuinely curious because I couldn’t find anything.
We know it causes an increase in blood-CO2 concentration: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8072811/
And possibly a decrease in white blood cell count: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34585544/
But I don’t think we know yet if there are long-term immune system complications