A: For the love of peanut butter and jelly, please NO, 1000 X NO!
“Health officials in a county in southern Washington state say a rise in coronavirus cases is linked to “COVID-19 parties.” NBC News Link
“Walla Walla County health officials are receiving reports of COVID-19 parties occurring in our community, where noninfected people mingle with an infected person in an effort to catch the virus,” the county said in a press release Tuesday.
The statement stressed that scientists don’t know yet if people infected with the coronavirus become immune and that contracting the virus risks serious illness.”
How many ways can we say ‘no’ to this?
1. Even young and healthy individuals can suffer extreme complications or death from COVID-19 and symptoms can last weeks with little known yet about the long-term consequences of infection.
2. If you were to attend such a party, you wouldn’t know if you became an asymptomatic case and then would potentially spread it to others at the grocery store, employment, etc., not to mention older or more vulnerable family members.
3. Having intentional get-togethers to spread COVID-19 undermines all the efforts communities have made to flatten the curve, and their occurrence could lead to an extension of, or return to, stay at home orders.
4. Most states have not yet ramped up their testing capacity or contact tracing staff to adequately deal with testing and contacting individuals who are part of more frequent large-network outbreaks.
5. CDC warns against this strategy for other illnesses such as Chicken Pox.
6. It has not been determined whether individuals who have the infection garner long-term immunity.
See below for supporting evidence of the above points and potentially others as we think of more reasons not to do this:
Questions about long term immunity
