"COVID Chasers:" Be Careful What You Wish for… Five Reasons Not to Intentionally Expose Yourself to Omicron
Most people are tired of COVID-19. Now entering our third year of the pandemic, it seems, on the one hand, we are making significant progress with vaccines, boosters, and treatments. On the other hand, we're dealing with Omicron, the latest mutation of the coronavirus creating a surge of cases across the United States and the world. And if we don't get a handle on COVID-19 with higher vaccination rates, we're susceptible to new strains.
"Omicron, with its extraordinary, unprecedented degree of efficiency of transmissibility, will ultimately find just about everybody," said Dr. Anthony Fauci. However, those who are not vaccinated are "going to get the brunt of the severe aspect of this," he added. The unvaccinated are 20 times likelier to die, 17 times more likely to be hospitalized, and 10 times more likely to be infected than the vaccinated.
Thinking it's just a matter of time, there's a growing and disturbing trend of people named COVID Chasers who are deliberately exposing themselves to Omicron to get a mild form of the virus and build natural antibodies to fight any future exposure. Understandably, people are wary of this pandemic; however, to deliberately expose yourself to the disease flies in the face of common sense and medical advice.
One way COVID chasers seek infection is by having "Omicron parties" where you gather with someone infected with Omicron and expose the guests to the disease. COVID chasers look back to the "chickenpox parties" as a model where parents would host a party to expose their young children to an infected child. Because cases of adult chickenpox were more severe, the idea was to have your child catch it early to "get it over with."
However, medical experts said those parties weren't good ideas then and shared anecdotes of kids who died or caught a severe form of the disease from attending one of those parties. Also, those parties were held before a vaccine had been discovered, which is significantly different from Omicron, where an effective vaccine with a booster is available.
It's worth looking at why deliberate exposure is a bad idea for both vaccinated and unvaccinated.
CNN Health and NPR offer the following reasons.
#1: It's Not a Bad Cold
Significant fever, body aches, swollen lymph nodes, sore throats, and heavy congestion are often reported even in milder cases of the Omicron variant, leaving people debilitated for days. Also, according to Time, there's no way to predict how severe a case of COVID-19 will be.
#2: You Could Get Long COVID
Called "long COVID," the phenomenon is characterized by such debilitating symptoms as shortness of breath, severe fatigue, fever, dizziness, brain fog, diarrhea, heart palpitations, muscle and abdominal pain, mood changes, and sleep difficulties.
Severe forms of long COVID can damage the lungs, heart, kidneys, and mental health.
The known unknowns should also give people a pause. "We don't yet know the longer-term full impact of viral infection with Omicron or other variants," says Dr. Turville from the Kirby Institute.
#3: You're Spreading the Disease to Children
Risky behavior that might expose someone to Omicron, such as not wearing a mask, not following social distancing guidelines, or gathering with crowds, especially indoors, will potentially expose others who may carry the virus to their children.
And according to the Seattle Times, even people who are vaccinated and boosted could infect a child under five who isn't eligible for vaccination or a more vulnerable adult.
#4: You'll Stress the Healthcare System
By deliberately catching any variant of SARS-CoV-2, which is the official name of the novel coronavirus, "you're going to keep the pandemic going and stress the healthcare system," said Dr. Robert Murphy, executive director of the Havey Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Staffing shortages will grow even more as frontline healthcare workers are either infected or forced to quarantine after exposure to COVID-19.
#5: If You Get Sick Now, You May Not Have Access to Treatments Still in Short Supply
Monoclonal antibody infusions, one of the most effective treatments to prevent serious illness from COVID-, are in short supply. It's the same problem with new antiviral medication such as Paxlovid, Pfizer's drug that must be given within the first few days of symptoms to be most effective. Also, the future likely holds even better treatments, so there's no rationale to get infected now.
Hopefully, these facts will dissuade people from hosting or attending Omicron parties or other ways to get infected deliberately.
Research and materials for this article were compiled, written, and distributed on behalf of the National Public Health Information Coalition. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the various authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the National Public Health Information Coalition or its members.
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