I am sure it has crossed many people's minds, but what if I want to get it before the medical systems are taxed? Like get it before the peak. I am sure it's very bad thinking, but what are some solid points against such thinking?
The overriding public health concern is slowing the spread as much as possible. Even if in the asymptote the same number of people are infected, spreading that burden out over a protracted time period minimizes overloading on the healthcare system.
If even a small percent of the population became "bug-chasers", it would supercharge the rate of transmission. Especially because the incubation period is so long. The same unhygienic behavior of trying to acquire the disease, would very likely also spread the disease by the asymptomatic.
If you put any ethical weight on the consideration of other human beings, then the very minor plausible individuals benefits are more than outweighed by the massive social harm.
Now there are a lot more people in those time slots all competing for the same doctors and hospital beds, etc.
Congratulations, you made the curve a little less flat :(
Odds are decent an even more effective treatment will be found in the coming months, and if you can stave off your infection date till then you'll be better off (which of course presumes that you will get the virus at all, which is far from a given).
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-risk-of-re...
If the reality is that only a small fraction of people would think like that, the we don't need to worry about that line of reasoning.
But I agree with your point that it's moot due to the potential for reinfection.
Over the long haul, reinfection is quite possible, since immunity wears off with time. It is not considered unlikely that this disease will be with us forever. In that case, vaccination will perhaps be our best tool to manage it.
The more practical problem is that the growth is exponential, so the window between "no one has it, it's safe to get it now" and "everyone has it, mass quarantine" is just a few weeks. Add to that that the virus has a 5-6 day incubation period and it basically doesn't work. Statistically, by the time you know someone sick from whom you can infect yourself, the number of people with still-incubating cases (who are AHEAD of you in the "queue"!) is probably enough to overwhelm health care facilities anyway.
Don't do this.
Even with that there seem bureaucratic type delays till it gets used. I just took some as a prophylactic which is totally unproven but as a clinical treatment it seems to work well in trials.
> Don’t be that person. It might not be about you but it is everyone’s problem. Don’t be careless in the hopes you get sick when you can “avoid the rush.” There is zero benefit to individuals or the population to getting sick early in the pandemic. You would be putting the lives of others at risk. It is not just that people are dying, but how they are dying. To say nothing of the physical trauma, emotionally speaking this is the opposite of a “good death”. People are dying alone, quarantined from those they love.
> Early reports are that people who recover develop antibodies that provide immunity if they are infected with the same strain again. However, this is great news for vaccine development, so flatten the curve and wait it out.
> This can get very serious; one person described the pain as feeling like her lungs were being put through a pasta maker. 10% of cases require ICU care and mechanical ventilation. Even if autopsy reports from China have been misrepresented or overstated, there is a possibility of long term or permanent lung damage if you do get sick and recover. There are lot of gaps in the information about lung damage, mostly because everyone qualified to let the public know exactly what is going on is already very busy saving lives and putting their own at risk.
If you're under 60 or so, it's quite likely you won't need any medical attention at all after contraction.
This is why it's spreading -- most middle-aged and younger people feel like they have the common cold.
Is that actually the case? Don't the details look like a low grade flu? It's not sore throat or sniffles, it's still a cough and a fever.
Untreated, it's basically like playing Russian Roulette. 5 out of 6 times, nothing bad happens. 1 out of 6, you die. The disparity in outcomes is probably what makes this so insidious: a lot of folks look at the numeric outcomes for healthy people in the presence of ventilators and ICUs and reasonably think "Oh, I have a 1 in 500 chance of dying, it's no big deal". Medical professionals look at the exponential infection curve, the capacity to overwhelm health care systems, and the number of patients requiring hospitalization and think "this is the scariest disease I've ever seen".
South Korea is a better dataset because they have tested so many people.