4 ms·

I wonder why chicken pox party style solution is not considered. 1. Gather application from low-risk people to be voluntarily infected. Needs to be a significa

by Grue3 7y ago

I wonder why chicken pox party style solution is not considered. 1. Gather application from low-risk people to be voluntarily infected. Needs to be a significant proportion of population. 2. Schedule them to be infected and isolate until they are virus-free and immune. 3. Immune people are released with no restrictions. 4. Eventually herd immunity is achieved.

drcode 7y ago
Robin Hanson has talked a lot about this. (https://twitter.com/robinhanson https://twitter.com/robinhanson) It seems to me to be the obviously correct thing to do (at least insofar as having immediate testing of the hypothesis at large scale with volunteers) but it treads on multiple cultural taboos and will therefore never be part of the gated institutional narrative.
- klingonopera 7y ago
  > "multiple cultural taboos" Honestly asking, are Chicken Pox parties also considered taboo? I don't have kids, but it sounds sensible to me, and I've heard people talk about it like it's normal. But if that's ok, I don't see where the difference would be to doing the same with the Coronavirus? It's just young adults instead of kids. Is that the crucial difference? Or is it because the lethality is considered higher? If yes, where does one draw the line then? I'd consider myself a Utilitarian, so... everything is just a calculation of good and bad. Or, to reference pop culture, you could approach me with the same level of disgust as Androids are generally approached in Alien IV. But I truly have difficulty understanding how most people appear to tick, so pardon me, if I look at the numbers of the Coronavirus and just am generally confused as to why it's such a big fuss. To me, this sounds like a great idea. Battling it with immunity and also paying the price of taking a few more additional losses outweigh grinding the world to a halt and attempting to contain it, at least, if you ask me. And since a vaccine will take too long (no one appears to deny that), there's no way around trying to get immunity, and once you've "accepted" that, the earlier we start, the better. In fact, the later we start, the more lives are at stake and the more economic damage we'll sustain. In light of that... such a Chicken Pox party is a legitimate method as part of the immunity-strategy.
  - drcode 7y ago
    If you google mainstream organizations about "chicken pox parties" you will see that they uniformly say they are a bad idea- Not because they care if their advice is accurate or not, but simply because "that's what you're supposed to say" if you want to be part of mainstream discourse in the US. Insofar as anyone of authority says anything positive about them, it is only because pox parties are still a relatively obscure phenomenon and therefore mainstream institutions haven't put in the effort yet to fully tamp down on dissenting opinions.
    - klingonopera 7y ago
      ...there's the thing about Chicken Pox, isn't it not far more severe, and deadly, in adults? I can remember having caught it as a kid, but if I didn't... I'd believe, I'd rather be thankful than scornful towards my parents if they had made sure I had caught it, instead of just letting things take their fateful course... EDIT: I mean, I am glad I had it as a kid. That means I don't need to worry about it now, right? Or is that a very naive way of thinking?
      - Grue3 7y ago
        If you had chicken pox as a kid, you can get Shingles [1] as an adult. I actually had it, without much complications but now there's a weird scar on my face. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingles
        dijit 7y ago
        Worth noting that there _is_ a chicken pox vaccine, you have to take two injections less than a year apart. I never had chicken pox as a child and got the vaccine as an adult due to a colleagues child being exposed to the pox and knowing that it could affect me and my colleague quite badly.
Tagbert 7y ago
You are assuming that there really is a low-risk group. As we have seen the risk of death MIGHT be lower for some people but the difference is not complete and younger, healthier people are dying, too. These are people’s lives you are using to gain that herd immunity. If we had wide-spread testing, we might be able to let some people know that they have recovered from exposure and are likely safe to return to a more normal life.
slowmovintarget 7y ago
There's no such thing as "herd immunity" in the sense we've popularized until you have a vaccine. Until then, it's throwing uncooked pasta against the wall and not understanding why it doesn't stick.

by Grue3 7y ago

drcode 7y ago

Robin Hanson has talked a lot about this. (https://twitter.com/robinhanson https://twitter.com/robinhanson) It seems to me to be the obviously correct thing to do (at least insofar as having immediate testing of the hypothesis at large scale with volunteers) but it treads on multiple cultural taboos and will therefore never be part of the gated institutional narrative.

klingonopera 7y ago
> "multiple cultural taboos" Honestly asking, are Chicken Pox parties also considered taboo? I don't have kids, but it sounds sensible to me, and I've heard people talk about it like it's normal. But if that's ok, I don't see where the difference would be to doing the same with the Coronavirus? It's just young adults instead of kids. Is that the crucial difference? Or is it because the lethality is considered higher? If yes, where does one draw the line then? I'd consider myself a Utilitarian, so... everything is just a calculation of good and bad. Or, to reference pop culture, you could approach me with the same level of disgust as Androids are generally approached in Alien IV. But I truly have difficulty understanding how most people appear to tick, so pardon me, if I look at the numbers of the Coronavirus and just am generally confused as to why it's such a big fuss. To me, this sounds like a great idea. Battling it with immunity and also paying the price of taking a few more additional losses outweigh grinding the world to a halt and attempting to contain it, at least, if you ask me. And since a vaccine will take too long (no one appears to deny that), there's no way around trying to get immunity, and once you've "accepted" that, the earlier we start, the better. In fact, the later we start, the more lives are at stake and the more economic damage we'll sustain. In light of that... such a Chicken Pox party is a legitimate method as part of the immunity-strategy.
- drcode 7y ago
  If you google mainstream organizations about "chicken pox parties" you will see that they uniformly say they are a bad idea- Not because they care if their advice is accurate or not, but simply because "that's what you're supposed to say" if you want to be part of mainstream discourse in the US. Insofar as anyone of authority says anything positive about them, it is only because pox parties are still a relatively obscure phenomenon and therefore mainstream institutions haven't put in the effort yet to fully tamp down on dissenting opinions.
  - klingonopera 7y ago
    ...there's the thing about Chicken Pox, isn't it not far more severe, and deadly, in adults? I can remember having caught it as a kid, but if I didn't... I'd believe, I'd rather be thankful than scornful towards my parents if they had made sure I had caught it, instead of just letting things take their fateful course... EDIT: I mean, I am glad I had it as a kid. That means I don't need to worry about it now, right? Or is that a very naive way of thinking?
    - Grue3 7y ago
      If you had chicken pox as a kid, you can get Shingles [1] as an adult. I actually had it, without much complications but now there's a weird scar on my face. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingles
      - dijit 7y ago
        Worth noting that there _is_ a chicken pox vaccine, you have to take two injections less than a year apart. I never had chicken pox as a child and got the vaccine as an adult due to a colleagues child being exposed to the pox and knowing that it could affect me and my colleague quite badly.

Tagbert 7y ago

You are assuming that there really is a low-risk group. As we have seen the risk of death MIGHT be lower for some people but the difference is not complete and younger, healthier people are dying, too. These are people’s lives you are using to gain that herd immunity. If we had wide-spread testing, we might be able to let some people know that they have recovered from exposure and are likely safe to return to a more normal life.

slowmovintarget 7y ago

There's no such thing as "herd immunity" in the sense we've popularized until you have a vaccine. Until then, it's throwing uncooked pasta against the wall and not understanding why it doesn't stick.