For those who didn’t see my previous posts on so-called “cover parties,” here’s an overview: 

Recent rumors and news reports have circulated claiming that COVID-19 is being spread intentionally in clandestine “covid parties.” In mid-March, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear made national headlines when he stated that part of the rise in coronavirus infections in his state was due to parties in which people tried their best to get sick. 

“We are battling for the health and even the lives of our parents and our grandparents. Don’t be so callous as to intentionally go to something and expose yourself to something that can kill other people. We ought to be much better than that,” he said in a news conference. News media widely carried the story, including CNN and NPR. A press release stated that authorities were “receiving reports of Covid-19 parties occurring in our community, where non-infected people mingle with an infected person in an effort to catch the virus.”

Confirmation that the parties were not only real but spreading came in the form of reports from Washington state, where Walla Walla’s “Meghan DeBolt, director of the county’s Department of Community Health, told the Union-Bulletin that contact tracing has revealed that some people who have newly tested positive had attended parties with the idea that it might be better to get sick with the virus and get it over with,” DeBolt told The Seattle Times.  

And then just last week came news from Alabama that college students had recently organized covid parties “as a contest to see who would get the virus first, officials said. Tuscaloosa City Councilor Sonya McKinstry said students hosted the parties to intentionally infect each other with the new coronavirus, news outlets reported. McKinstry said party organizers purposely invited guests who tested positive for COVID-19. She said the students put money in a pot and whoever got COVID first would get the cash.”

So what’s going on? Is this a genuine public health threat? 

To answer the question we can look at it from different perspectives, including media literacy, critical thinking, and folklore. There are elements of journalism, rumor, conspiracy, anti-vaccination fears, and medical misinformation. 

A Closer Look

The idea of intentionally being exposed to a disease in order to become immune to it—assuming, of course, you survive it—has been around for centuries and is the premise behind inoculation and vaccination (in which small, inactive doses of a disease trigger the body to produce defenses). 

There’s an important difference, however: Vaccinations are given specifically to prevent diseases; the idea is that hopefully you won’t get the disease at all. But these covid parties are intended to make sure the person contracts the disease (for most adults it’s not clear why actually getting sick from a potentially lethal disease would be any better at one time instead of risking getting sick at another time in the future; there’s hardly a “convenient” time to be bedridden—and possibly hospitalized—for weeks).  

Part of it traces back to anti-vaccination fears, which are closely related to conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and other diseases. There was vehement resistance to the very first vaccine, created for smallpox in the late 1700s. When the public learned that the vaccine was created by taking pus from the wounds of infected cows and giving it to humans, they were disgusted by the idea; some even believed that the vaccination could actually turn people (especially children) into cows! In England, vaccination deniers formed an Anti-Vaccination League in 1853, followed by the Anti-compulsory Vaccination League in 1867. These groups claimed that the smallpox vaccine was dangerous, ineffective, and represented not only a conspiracy but an infringement on personal rights by the government and medical establishment (this may sound familiar).

Such fears over smallpox vaccination have been long since disproven—the vaccination was both safe and effective—but the distrust and fearmongering continue to this day. Before vaccines were available, some parents held “pox parties” in which kids were encouraged to play with others who had chicken pox, measles, and other childhood diseases. They were especially popular in the 1970s and 1980s, though are today often promoted by anti-vaccination groups. 

Events in which people are deliberately exposed to diseases in place of vaccinations are a bad idea for several reasons, including as noted that the whole point of getting a vaccine is that you don’t get sick in the first place.

Of course, vaccination—like any medical intervention, drug, or therapy—isn’t perfect and doesn’t offer absolute protection. Some people who are fully vaccinated will still get the disease (albeit with typically milder symptoms and for a shorter duration), and some people who don’t get vaccinated won’t get the disease anyway (for any number of reasons, ranging from a strong immune system to simply not being exposed to a contagious person). But overall, on a population level, the scientific evidence is clear and convincing that vaccines are safe and effective. In the case of COVID-19, there is as yet no available vaccine, so there’s no safe way to expose someone to the coronavirus that doesn’t endanger their health. 

You can read the rest HERE, at my Center for Inquiry blog.