I had a large pine tree go bad, and it was infested with pine beetles. So it would easy to conclude they killed it. But what really happened was the tree’s base was covered by 8 inches of new top soil when that area was sodded, and the pine beetles just went after a SICKLY TREE. So could be the case here where this parasite just swarms onto sickly tissue.
You have to get the infection, first. You can’t spontaneously make T. Gondi in your body.
It’s equivalent to having a tick—just more common. No one is immune to it.