[klingonopera]

> "multiple cultural taboos"

Honestly asking, are Chicken Pox parties also considered taboo? I don't have kids, but it sounds sensible to me, and I've heard people talk about it like it's normal.

But if that's ok, I don't see where the difference would be to doing the same with the Coronavirus? It's just young adults instead of kids. Is that the crucial difference? Or is it because the lethality is considered higher? If yes, where does one draw the line then?

I'd consider myself a Utilitarian, so... everything is just a calculation of good and bad. Or, to reference pop culture, you could approach me with the same level of disgust as Androids are generally approached in Alien IV. But I truly have difficulty understanding how most people appear to tick, so pardon me, if I look at the numbers of the Coronavirus and just am generally confused as to why it's such a big fuss.

To me, this sounds like a great idea. Battling it with immunity and also paying the price of taking a few more additional losses outweigh grinding the world to a halt and attempting to contain it, at least, if you ask me. And since a vaccine will take too long (no one appears to deny that), there's no way around trying to get immunity, and once you've "accepted" that, the earlier we start, the better. In fact, the later we start, the more lives are at stake and the more economic damage we'll sustain.

In light of that... such a Chicken Pox party is a legitimate method as part of the immunity-strategy.

[drcode]

If you google mainstream organizations about "chicken pox parties" you will see that they uniformly say they are a bad idea- Not because they care if their advice is accurate or not, but simply because "that's what you're supposed to say" if you want to be part of mainstream discourse in the US.

Insofar as anyone of authority says anything positive about them, it is only because pox parties are still a relatively obscure phenomenon and therefore mainstream institutions haven't put in the effort yet to fully tamp down on dissenting opinions.

[klingonopera]

...there's the thing about Chicken Pox, isn't it not far more severe, and deadly, in adults?

I can remember having caught it as a kid, but if I didn't... I'd believe, I'd rather be thankful than scornful towards my parents if they had made sure I had caught it, instead of just letting things take their fateful course...

EDIT: I mean, I am glad I had it as a kid. That means I don't need to worry about it now, right? Or is that a very naive way of thinking?

[Grue3]

If you had chicken pox as a kid, you can get Shingles [1] as an adult. I actually had it, without much complications but now there's a weird scar on my face.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingles

[dijit]

Worth noting that there _is_ a chicken pox vaccine, you have to take two injections less than a year apart.

I never had chicken pox as a child and got the vaccine as an adult due to a colleagues child being exposed to the pox and knowing that it could affect me and my colleague quite badly.