College students attend parties after testing positive

[polly_mer]

I suspect that even the part about lots of people going to parties when they know they had been diagnosed isn't true. 2.7 million people have had COVID in the US, so I'd expect that a few of them are selfish idiots and have gone to a party after a positive test, but I very much doubt this is a widespread phenomenon.

I don't know about lots, but there's at least one different article/tv blurb every day in nearly every news outlet I follow along the lines of:

I'm a real person who didn't take it seriously, but now after <attending some gathering>, people are sick and someone (possibly the speaker) is in the hospital or dead.

Please take this seriously. Stay home as much as possible.  Wear your mask and save lives.

We sigh heavily in my house every time and say, yep, and the people who most need the message are those who won't heed it until covid affects them, just like you.

In recent days, for most of these narratives, someone has admitted to being positive at the gathering or having the kinds of exposure that makes them likely to have been exposed. They add their voices to learning from the mistake and urging others to choose differently.

As for getting a disease and purposeful passing, that was a thing when I was a child with chicken pox.  I brought it back from camp one year and neighborhood kids were brought in to interact with me.  I was not isolated from my sister.  The point was indeed to get it over with.

[Caracal]

I suspect that even the part about lots of people going to parties when they know they had been diagnosed isn't true. 2.7 million people have had COVID in the US, so I'd expect that a few of them are selfish idiots and have gone to a party after a positive test, but I very much doubt this is a widespread phenomenon.

I don't know about lots, but there's at least one different article/tv blurb every day in nearly every news outlet I follow along the lines of:

I'm a real person who didn't take it seriously, but now after <attending some gathering>, people are sick and someone (possibly the speaker) is in the hospital or dead.

Please take this seriously. Stay home as much as possible.  Wear your mask and save lives.

We sigh heavily in my house every time and say, yep, and the people who most need the message are those who won't heed it until covid affects them, just like you.

In recent days, someone has admitted to being positive at the gathering or having the kinds of exposure that makes them likely to have been exposed.

As for getting a disease and purposeful passing, that was a thing when I was a child with chicken pox.  I brought it back from camp one year and neighborhood kids were brought in to interact with me.  I was not isolated from my sister.  The point was indeed to get it over with.

Well yes, which is what gives these stories their power. They hit on these broader anxieties about social responsibility. While its certainly true that lots of people aren't being careful enough, or careful at all, I still think the focus on personal responsibility lets a lot of people off the hook. If people shouldn't go to bars or eat indoors at restaurants then why the hell are those places open? What about all the people who have to go to work? We obviously aren't protecting people in high risk settings like meat packing plants or prisons and those infections go out into the larger community. There's not enough contract tracing etc etc etc.

[the_geneticist]

Purposeful chickenpox exposure was a thing when I was a kid.  Why?  There was no vaccine and the parents all firmly believed it was better (less dangerous? less memorable?) to get chickenpox while younger & to get it over with.  There was no talk of trying to isolate kids with the pox or stop the spread.  My mom was worried that I hadn't had it by the time I was 6 or 7 and thought maybe I'd had a super mild case as a toddler.  Nope, got it in second grade.  Miserable experience.  And all the neighborhood kids came over to play.

[Hegemony]

Some wise scientist has said that it's pointless to ask if a party where people got infected was a Covid party or merely a party. Scientist says, "In the present conditions, every party is a Covid party."

[kaysixteen]

Sure, in a sense that's true, every party could have at least one asymptomatic covid spreader in attendance (which also begs the question as to why exactly one would go to a 'party' during a pandemic), but that would be way way different from intentionally attending a function with a known covid+ person in attendance.  Who would do that?  Obviously someone ignorant of the real (and as yet not nearly fully known) potential consequences of covid disease acquisition.   

And do not get me started wrt the asinine and insane idea some vaccinidiot parents have wrt intentionally exposing kids to measles, chicken pox, etc.   Probably such 'parents' should have their kids removed from their 'care'.

[namazu]

Some wise scientist has said that it's pointless to ask if a party where people got infected was a Covid party or merely a party. Scientist says, "In the present conditions, every party is a Covid party."

^ This.  At this point in the pandemic, you should assume that there's at least one CoViD+ person in attendance at any party or other gathering you attend, and you're volunteering to be exposed.  (Unfortunately, you're also volunteering to expose others.)