A few points about "Chicken Pox parties", and why they should never have been part of any serious discussion of pandemic management thejournal.ie/dominic-cummin… 1/n
Like Covid, chicken pox is more likely to lead to severe illness and complications the older you are when you are first exposed. In the UK in the 1990s about 25 people died every year of the infection, 80% being adults ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P… 2/n
It is generally thought that on recovery from chicken pox immunity is lifelong. As a result in the 70s and 80s some people would arrange for their kids to be infected at an age they would be at lower risk of complications. This is not a good idea 3/n infectioncontrol.tips/2015/12/18/its…
For a start, chicken pox ain't fun (I know, I remember having it) and there are risks of complications. AND there's an effective vaccine available. There's a movement to call time on the practice. But we were talking about the pandemic... 4/n theguardian.com/society/2021/m…
Chicken pox parties in the 70s and 80s took place in a world in which almost all older people were immune already (because VSV, which causes it, is highly contagious and most would contract it as kids anyway) as a result the chance of infecting older folks was VERY low 5/n
In contrast, deliberately allowing large amounts of SARS-CoV-2 infections in younger age cohorts will not only expose *them* to risk, transmission from the young to older folks will expose them (and healthcare systems) to catastrophic risk 6/n
And even if a sufficient population of younger age groups become immune and the epidemic waned, it won't protect older age cohorts from future introductions including severe outbreaks. We tend to mix with people our own age, so those contact networks would remain vulnerable 7/n
These are not hard arguments to make. But the fact that anyone, around mid March 2020, was thinking in terms of chicken pox parties exposes a lethal attitude to basic ID epidemiology that contributed to the UK's disastrous first pandemic year 8/end
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