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Ask HN: Are people considering Corona parties (a.k.a. Pox parties)?

15 points by aaron695 ↗ HN
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pox_party

It would allow much safer control measures for yourself and the community rather than something that's predicted by some to happen at a 70% chance at a random time.

25 comments

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kohtatsu
I think it's possible you remain contagious for more than a couple weeks (I read 6 way back when); the 14 day period is just to see if you have symptoms and need testing.

As long as nobody is above 40(?), and there are no underlying conditions like bronchitis, or immunodeficiency, maybe it wouldn't be a terrible idea. But you need to be ready to quarantine everyone until tests come back negative, and then there are false negatives, and it becomes a widespread think idea I'm sure people will mistakenly get their moms involved without realizing how dangerous it is for older people.

Also where did you get 70%? I give myself a 0-5% chance with some decent social distancing.

daleholborow
You give yourself? Merkel just advised the German government that 60-70% of Germans could ultimately be exposed.
kohtatsu
I'm in a remote part of Canada, everyone is very cautious in my town of ~20k, and I can work remotely.

I'm taking extra precautions because I have asthma.

60-70% could be exposed in Germany, OK, over what time frame?

I would give myself a high likelihood of being in that 30-40%; working hard to not occupy a ventilator if I can because I'm in a privileged position.

lm28469
> everyone is very cautious in my town of ~20k,

That's not how it works unless by "cautious" you mean wearing gloves and properly fitted masks and avoiding all unprotected human contact.

kohtatsu
By cautious I mean there are 100 confirmed cases in my country, yet everyone is already talking about it and few people are scoffing. Our cafés are mostly empty, which yes counts as being cautious, and yes it is literally how social distancing and flattening the curve works.
trenchgun
The basic calculation is: 1-1/R0

R0 is around 3.

So 1-1/3=0.67 => 67% of population will be infected.

That is the situation if we don't do effective measures on a population level.

Edit: I am unable to math, fixed.

tobltobs
> maybe it wouldn't be a terrible idea.

It is a terribly stupid idea.

Our only hope is too flatten the curve.

kohtatsu
Yeah, I don't think this is an approach we could take because laymen would try it. But as a thought experiment I don't think this is mutually exclusive with flattening the curve.

If you could guarantee a group of people would be part of the mild cold symptoms (~80%), it would be nice to have them get it, isolate and monitor, and let their bodies develop the immunity.

They would no longer be able to spread it to more vulnerable people.

It's just like a vaccine, but riskier.

But beyond all that, I now remember there's evidence the virus might be doing permanent damage.

So definitely don't do this. Even if you could quarantine for 10 weeks or whatever.

felixworks
This strategy could be helpful for future pandemics, if more governments learned to be much more proactive about public health. In other words, we can forget about this strategy.
muzani
Some experts are saying about 50%-70% of society will get infected at this rate. But that doesn't mean your odds are 70%.
molmalo
That would be a terrible idea at best and a recipe for disaster at worst. The idea right now is to reduce the rate of transmission, so the health system can cope with the demand, as 20% of the cases will require hospitalization.

Throwing this kind of parties would do the opposite, saturating the health system and thus, increasing the death rate.

Sorry, but it's the worst idea I've heard in a while, by far.

encima
There are also some cases of people getting the illness again so it seems like there is little benefit to this idea.
bitwarden
The point of a pox party is to get the children sick while young, so they don't get sick with the same disease in the future. You can re-contract the coronavirus so there is no point in doing this.
Jefro118
I don't think this is correct. There were some indications earlier on that some people can get Covid-19 more than once but the cases appear to have been relapses rather than being infected more than once.
tobltobs
It is astonishing that even on a side like hn people are not capable of understanding some simple maths.

10% of infected persons need intensive care including ventilation.

The US has 100k intensive care unit beds. About 90% are already occupied.

If only 10% get infected at the same time, the health system will be totally overwhelmed.

If 30% get it at the same time, millions will be left dying.

I am missing the words to describe the stupidity of a Corona party.

ekr
It is astonishing that even on HN there are these style of insulting / ad-hominem / reddit-style answers to a honest inquiry.

You conclusion about people understanding math is unfounded, maybe OP doesn't have the data, maybe that's simply not the concern of the question. (and even you are making a hidden argument for getting infected now, whilst hospital beds are still available, rather than later).

Again, if written in good faith, there are no stupid questions, and ad-hominems like yours have no place on HN.

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aaron695
Would you mind explaining the maths to me, I have a mathematics degree so you can get reasonably complex.

Issue one, I have a 85 year old to care for who I don't want to kill by getting the virus by unknown means and asymptotically giving them virus. When I know contact point there is no unknown period to self isolate for.

Issue two, while it's quite, in the minuscule change I got really sick (I am very low chance of complications) it would be better to go to hospital now than kicking out an older person in a few months time. I doubt I will be going to hospital.

Issue three, I'd like to contribute to herd immunity by getting a Claytons vaccine, I don't think other's should feel obliged but those who wish to should be allowed.

I am aware you may be able to get it twice after a unknown period, there is no evidence this is possible for most people in a short time. If that was true we are very much in trouble. I'm also aware it seems like it can become active again in some people, these seem to be misidentified as catching it twice. I'm aware vaccines are at crazy best a year away. I'm aware treatments are improving.

How would you model this?

0x1221
No. Infecting large numbers of people at the same time is the exact opposite of what everyone is trying to achieve.
forkexec
"Everyone" isn't a sane and rational monolith. There are crazy and psychopathic people.
anfilt
This is a bad idea. The virus is still pretty new so lots of unknowns like it may be dormant after infection in certain body parts. Also considering the 1 to 2% death rate seems highly risky. Plus a higher percentage needing intensive care and monitoring. Moreover, there are reports of second infections so it may not even inoculate that well against a second infection. So it's just risky with so many unknowns.

Moreover, we are not even sure this virus will be around next year. Unlike chicken pox before the vaccine was made the reasoning was if you caught it as an adult it could be quite dangerous. While this virus is especially dangerous to elderly. Depending on your age it could be decades before your in that risk category. We surely will have a vaccine or better treatment by then, so again just taking risk with no real benefit.

Not only that this is likely to increase spread of the virus unless your properly quarantined. This just a bad bad idea with how little we know and the possibility of a vaccine on the horizon.

zxcmx
I work in a huge, open plan, hot desked office, take crowded public transport (so close that everyone is touching at peak) and have kids that go to 2 different daycares.

My life, almost every day of it, is basically a massive "pox party". I am not considering formalising the arrangement at this time :/

jmnicolas
My n+1 had difficulties to breath, headache and cough this morning but came "just one hour" at work for this "important meeting" ...
jka
Self-infecting to 'get through it' is an individualistic approach for those outside the risk groups and will appeal to different degrees based on cultural norms and government policies in different countries.

It risks creating a higher transmission rate - initially for the individual and their community, and then across wider populations - and that could overwhelm health services, leading to insufficient care coverage and ultimately unnecessary harm & deaths.

Developing herd immunity is a useful eventual population-wide goal but it mustn't be rushed since the virus can require intensive care and have fatal consequences for at-risk groups.

Unvaccinated chicken pox has a fatality rate less than 0.01% for children and 0.02% for adults[0][1] while COVID-19 has been estimated anywhere between 1% and 5% and is certainly higher than that for those in older age[2].

It is these higher fatality rates for at-risk populations which make the idea of intentionally spreading the virus dangerous to the community due to their potential to increase load on health services.

It might be sensible and responsible to re-title this post to 'Warn HN: Discourage Corona parties'. There's also some risk involved by spreading awareness of the idea of a Corona party, unfortunately.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_disease_case_fat...

[1] - https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/varicella.html

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019#Progn...

tomjen3
I am in Denmark. There was a time where that might have made sense, but when they shut down the country late Wednesday, that stopped being an option.

I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else either.