More data is necessary. It seems likely to me that exposure to the disease will confer immunity for some period of time, because so many other diseases work that way. But we just don't have solid data that shows that to be the case. (We also don't have data that says the opposite is true.)
I kind of have a gut feeling that the total number of people infected is much higher than we think it is, and thus there is less risk. We can watch the states that have reopened to see if that's true (and ship everyone an antibody test with their Census forms or something). More data is being acquired, and with that data, we should be able to make better guesses as to what the next course of action should be.
(Reacting to this article specifically, I'd love for the author to get an antibody test. It seems so unlikely to me for people in these very high risk environments to have managed to not get the disease. People travel sick. People wear masks wrong. The disease is incredibly contagious. How could you not get sick? It is all kind of amazing to me.)
Counterpoint: I would volunteer for this today if it was an option.
I feel that I'm well informed on the potential risks to myself.
Put in reverse - what duration and severity of restrictions to your life would you be willing to endure in exchange for a three-week boost to your life expectancy?
I'd even sign up for periodic attempts at re-infection to ensure that I'm (still) immune.
The thing is, it's not just a personal decision, increased social contact results in increased spread for everybody, not just a 3 week risk for a given individual.
Of course, lots of people are starting from the premise that 100% infection is inevitable, and then apparently tacking on it not being worth slowing things down while interventions and vaccines are researched, in which case it doesn't make any sense to worry about other people (because they think it's a foregone conclusion).
I'm not really sure how your other points relate to mine? The point of voluntary infection is that my social contacts then wouldn't be a risk to others.
Coronaviruses don't tend to produce strong, long-lasting immunity, and we have no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 does, and, also, young otherwise healthy people are dying from strokes that seem to be due to the virus: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/24/strokes-cor...
So, this would be both high-risk and of dubious utility even in the case where significant adverse effects didn't occur.
Sure they do. But the immunity lasts a few years instead of a lifetime.
This is a bit misleading. The common coronaviruses that cause the "common cold" do not seem to confer long lasting immunity. But there are very significant differences between those viruses and SC2. The best estimate we have is that immunity will be similar to SC1 (SARS) and immunity to that lasts several years.
"Voluntarily allowing people to get infected" creates a perverse incentive for poor essential workers to put their lives on the line in order to put food on the table.
The perverse incentive would be for non-essential workers, but only if this is coupled with one of the existing proposals for “certificates of immunity” (which there is little scientific basis for, but that's another issue) being a factor in allowing them to return to non-remote work.
If voluntary infection is allowed, employers may favor employees who test positive for antibodies—for example, by offering a pay increase, or some additional amount of paid sick leave prior to recovery—because they would be less likely to fall ill en masse at some unpredictable later date. States with continued (or resumed in a second wave) shutdown restrictions may exempt businesses whose employees are deemed immune.
The people most likely to be incentivized to take this risk are the people who are most economically vulnerable already. I would never consider that risk, but I'm a well paid software engineer working from home.
That does seem to be the prevailing public understanding, but it's not actually yet known to be the case.
Of course it's possible, but it would be gambling not just on successful recovery (as it always would) but also that it would end up being effective anyway.
They are less crowded than usual because elective procedures have been cancelled in many cases, but people are still there for non-elective procedures, emergencies, births, etc. And yes, covid cases requiring a hospital are lower than predicted... but they do exist.