8 ms·

Anybody else feeling like if we're young and healthy we should actively try to contract this thing, self-isolate for a few weeks, and be done with it? It feels

Anybody else feeling like if we're young and healthy we should actively try to contract this thing, self-isolate for a few weeks, and be done with it? It feels almost like this would be the most socially responsible thing to do: reduce the effective R0 and allow things to start getting back to normality. I'm the farthest thing from a "reopen" protester. But I can't help thinking that as a young and healthy individual, this is a valid option that nobody is talking about.

droopyEyelids 7y ago
This made sense when it seemed like the flu- where you get it, and you die or you get better, end of story. Sars-2 is you get it, and then you get some amount of permanent damage to your lungs and cardiovascular system.
tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
The problem with that is, as far as I know, that: - COVID puts even some of the young and healthy into the ICU - there are reports of serious long term damage even in mild/asymptomatic cases, so you might be immune until the next big pandemic but your lungs may be busted forever
- rimliu 7y ago
  I doubt there are any report of "serious long term damage even in mild/asymptomatic cases". First, because we simply do not have any data on long term effects for the simple reason that this thing is less than six months old. As for lung damage is it mostly caused by ventilation, not by disease itself. I doubt you get artificial lung ventilation if you got an asymptomatic case.
forgot_my_pwd 7y ago
This has been my thinking for a few weeks now. Aside from bringing us significantly closer to herd immunity, it would increase the pool of eligible plasma donors for plasma antibody therapy. And those are just the public health benefits. Saving millions of jobs and livelihoods is no small benefit either.
SeeTheTruth 7y ago
NO. You risk spreading it, young and healthy people are still dying or having severe outcomes - we still don't know enough to predict how it will go. And we still don't know if catching one strain once confers immunity, or for how long. So you won't be "done with it". If you do get sick you become a burden on an overloaded healthcare system. The people talking about this option are rightly being shut down.
- twunde 7y ago
  To reiterate NO! Something that's not talked about enough is that the coronavirus is causing neurological issues[1]. The full effects aren't known, but examples of neurological diseases are MS, Parkinson's and cerebral palsy. That's not something to want to voluntarily get. oh, and that's not to mention that you're likely to get lung scarring or have a long-term cough[2]. The survivors will have major long-term complications. [1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2764549 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2... [2] https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-19-some-patients-may-suffer-lasting-lung-damage https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-19-som...
  - nosuchthing 7y ago
    + Kidney issues. Kidney failure could explain the swelling of feet, cardiac issues, and strokes being observed in Covid-19 infected cases. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.20022418v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.20022418v... https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/04/22/health/strokes-coronavirus-young-adults/index.html https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/04/22/health/strokes-coronaviru...
  - daxfohl 7y ago
    But what is the plan? We can't sit around for five years until there is a vaccine. By then we'll all have caught it anyway. Nevermind that food supply chain will have dried up way before then and nobody will have a job anymore. Even with my posh job at a big cloud provider, I can't imagine the public still caring about any new feature dev if this goes on more than a year, so bye bye "recession proof" job. I can't imagine many other jobs surviving much more than that. That is as much of a non plan as an unmitigated reopen. I just don't think that works. I think we're going to have to end up making some hard choices about acceptable risk, and how we can use that to get to a better outcome.
gumby 7y ago
Young and healthy doesn’t guarantee you’ll survive the disease intact.
cbhl 7y ago
It's unclear to me whether you'll catch it again next year (like the seasonal flu), or how long your immunity will last. But if you want to go about this, I'd suggest doing so with medical supervision. Consider volunteering for a "challenge vaccine trial": https://1daysooner.org/ https://1daysooner.org/
danieltillett 7y ago
If only it were that simple. Coronavirus only induce a short lived immunity (40 weeks is the average). With the common cold varieties you basically catch the same virus over and over again as you don’t build up any long term immunity to them. The end result of all this is you would get sick and then be at risk of getting sick again next year and the year after that all the while putting at risk anyone who is vulnerable. There is really only one way out of this mess - a vaccine.
- arpa 7y ago
  I don't think we have any data regarding immunity against this particular coronavirus. AFAIR, the nastier the virus, the longer immunity lasts, e.g. SARS, MERS immunity can last up to 3 years.
  - danieltillett 7y ago
    Yes we do (I have to dig out the reference), but it appears to be the same as other Coronaviruses. You are right that the worse the infection the longer the immunity, but if we are looking at the young they have a mild disease so we should expect a short immune lifetime. Edit. Have a look at Figure 3 of this pre-print[0]. This doesn’t encourage me that we can expect a long immune lifetime with SARS-CoV-2. 0. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.15.20066407v1.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.15.20066407v...
asdhaslkskdh 7y ago
What if this is the new HIV/AIDS? (I'm no fan of oversimplification, but this is what's at stake.)
- enitihas 7y ago
  This is far far worse than HIV, as in it is much much harder to avoid being inflected. The difference between the precautions for HIV and for this is night and day.
fragmede 7y ago
The science is still out. We're not sure that specific individuals will develop an antibody response, though WHO will now go as far as to say "most" and "some level of protection"[0]. We're not sure being young and healthy is enough to guarantee that you won't die from it. We're not sure of the long-term effects of having caught it. Maybe it kills everyone 6 months later. Doubtful, but no one's been alive for 6 months after having caught it. We still don't know enough about this thing, though we are learning more by the day. As the magic 8 ball says: ask again tomorrow. [0] https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1254160937805926405 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1254160937805926405
- rimliu 7y ago
  There is no guarantee that you won't die from the lighting strike. All the numbers show that risk for the young people is extremely low (though not zero), even lower than some other common ilnesses.
helen___keller 7y ago
Maybe it's possible that there could be a net positive from a coordinated and well-executed plan that follows this idea in an area with sufficient hospital resources to handle the small percentage of cases that end up severe. That said there are two reasons why this should not and will not happen: 1. Execution - it's not enough to tell the young and healthy "go get coughed on". Intentionally infecting a significant percentage of the population would almost certainly lead to an outbreak in the remaining population unless extreme care was taken. Keep in mind that a bunch of these young people won't have any symptoms at all- and we probably don't have the resources to test all these young people. The outcome would be too predictable- some young people would want to leave home after a week thinking they never got sick, and then would spread the disease to their community. 2. Politics and fairness - who are the ones most incentivized to be intentionally infected? Who are the ones most capable of declining this program and continuing to isolate at home for the next N months as needed? Any politician who suggests this plan will be accused of sacrificing the poor and the blue collar, as they are the ones who can't just work remotely for the next year. Personally, as a WFH-capable employee I would sit this out. Why should I go through this when I'm capable of effectively disappearing from society until the pandemic is over? I'm sure many other office workers agree. Putting these two points together, this is neither something that we should encourage individuals to do of their own right (lest they fuck it up and hurt their community), nor something any politician would (probably) ever try to coordinate and execute at scale.

droopyEyelids 7y ago

This made sense when it seemed like the flu- where you get it, and you die or you get better, end of story. Sars-2 is you get it, and then you get some amount of permanent damage to your lungs and cardiovascular system.

tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago

The problem with that is, as far as I know, that: - COVID puts even some of the young and healthy into the ICU - there are reports of serious long term damage even in mild/asymptomatic cases, so you might be immune until the next big pandemic but your lungs may be busted forever

rimliu 7y ago
I doubt there are any report of "serious long term damage even in mild/asymptomatic cases". First, because we simply do not have any data on long term effects for the simple reason that this thing is less than six months old. As for lung damage is it mostly caused by ventilation, not by disease itself. I doubt you get artificial lung ventilation if you got an asymptomatic case.

forgot_my_pwd 7y ago

This has been my thinking for a few weeks now. Aside from bringing us significantly closer to herd immunity, it would increase the pool of eligible plasma donors for plasma antibody therapy. And those are just the public health benefits. Saving millions of jobs and livelihoods is no small benefit either.

SeeTheTruth 7y ago

NO. You risk spreading it, young and healthy people are still dying or having severe outcomes - we still don't know enough to predict how it will go. And we still don't know if catching one strain once confers immunity, or for how long. So you won't be "done with it". If you do get sick you become a burden on an overloaded healthcare system. The people talking about this option are rightly being shut down.

twunde 7y ago
To reiterate NO! Something that's not talked about enough is that the coronavirus is causing neurological issues[1]. The full effects aren't known, but examples of neurological diseases are MS, Parkinson's and cerebral palsy. That's not something to want to voluntarily get. oh, and that's not to mention that you're likely to get lung scarring or have a long-term cough[2]. The survivors will have major long-term complications. [1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2764549 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2... [2] https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-19-some-patients-may-suffer-lasting-lung-damage https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-19-som...
- nosuchthing 7y ago
  + Kidney issues. Kidney failure could explain the swelling of feet, cardiac issues, and strokes being observed in Covid-19 infected cases. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.20022418v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.20022418v... https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/04/22/health/strokes-coronavirus-young-adults/index.html https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/04/22/health/strokes-coronaviru...
- daxfohl 7y ago
  But what is the plan? We can't sit around for five years until there is a vaccine. By then we'll all have caught it anyway. Nevermind that food supply chain will have dried up way before then and nobody will have a job anymore. Even with my posh job at a big cloud provider, I can't imagine the public still caring about any new feature dev if this goes on more than a year, so bye bye "recession proof" job. I can't imagine many other jobs surviving much more than that. That is as much of a non plan as an unmitigated reopen. I just don't think that works. I think we're going to have to end up making some hard choices about acceptable risk, and how we can use that to get to a better outcome.

gumby 7y ago

Young and healthy doesn’t guarantee you’ll survive the disease intact.

cbhl 7y ago

It's unclear to me whether you'll catch it again next year (like the seasonal flu), or how long your immunity will last. But if you want to go about this, I'd suggest doing so with medical supervision. Consider volunteering for a "challenge vaccine trial": https://1daysooner.org/ https://1daysooner.org/

danieltillett 7y ago

If only it were that simple. Coronavirus only induce a short lived immunity (40 weeks is the average). With the common cold varieties you basically catch the same virus over and over again as you don’t build up any long term immunity to them. The end result of all this is you would get sick and then be at risk of getting sick again next year and the year after that all the while putting at risk anyone who is vulnerable. There is really only one way out of this mess - a vaccine.

arpa 7y ago
I don't think we have any data regarding immunity against this particular coronavirus. AFAIR, the nastier the virus, the longer immunity lasts, e.g. SARS, MERS immunity can last up to 3 years.
- danieltillett 7y ago
  Yes we do (I have to dig out the reference), but it appears to be the same as other Coronaviruses. You are right that the worse the infection the longer the immunity, but if we are looking at the young they have a mild disease so we should expect a short immune lifetime. Edit. Have a look at Figure 3 of this pre-print[0]. This doesn’t encourage me that we can expect a long immune lifetime with SARS-CoV-2. 0. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.15.20066407v1.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.15.20066407v...

asdhaslkskdh 7y ago

What if this is the new HIV/AIDS? (I'm no fan of oversimplification, but this is what's at stake.)

enitihas 7y ago
This is far far worse than HIV, as in it is much much harder to avoid being inflected. The difference between the precautions for HIV and for this is night and day.

fragmede 7y ago

The science is still out. We're not sure that specific individuals will develop an antibody response, though WHO will now go as far as to say "most" and "some level of protection"[0]. We're not sure being young and healthy is enough to guarantee that you won't die from it. We're not sure of the long-term effects of having caught it. Maybe it kills everyone 6 months later. Doubtful, but no one's been alive for 6 months after having caught it. We still don't know enough about this thing, though we are learning more by the day. As the magic 8 ball says: ask again tomorrow. [0] https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1254160937805926405 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1254160937805926405

rimliu 7y ago
There is no guarantee that you won't die from the lighting strike. All the numbers show that risk for the young people is extremely low (though not zero), even lower than some other common ilnesses.

helen___keller 7y ago

Maybe it's possible that there could be a net positive from a coordinated and well-executed plan that follows this idea in an area with sufficient hospital resources to handle the small percentage of cases that end up severe. That said there are two reasons why this should not and will not happen: 1. Execution - it's not enough to tell the young and healthy "go get coughed on". Intentionally infecting a significant percentage of the population would almost certainly lead to an outbreak in the remaining population unless extreme care was taken. Keep in mind that a bunch of these young people won't have any symptoms at all- and we probably don't have the resources to test all these young people. The outcome would be too predictable- some young people would want to leave home after a week thinking they never got sick, and then would spread the disease to their community. 2. Politics and fairness - who are the ones most incentivized to be intentionally infected? Who are the ones most capable of declining this program and continuing to isolate at home for the next N months as needed? Any politician who suggests this plan will be accused of sacrificing the poor and the blue collar, as they are the ones who can't just work remotely for the next year. Personally, as a WFH-capable employee I would sit this out. Why should I go through this when I'm capable of effectively disappearing from society until the pandemic is over? I'm sure many other office workers agree. Putting these two points together, this is neither something that we should encourage individuals to do of their own right (lest they fuck it up and hurt their community), nor something any politician would (probably) ever try to coordinate and execute at scale.