Controlled COVID-19 Infection in Hospitals Could Achieve A Safer Exit Strategy in the Near-Term: Assessing Risks and Benefits

Eleftherios Diamandis

How it Works
Instructions for Authors
Subject Areas
Advisory Board
screening preprints
About

Advanced Search

Submit preprint Login Register

Share this article with

Create alert

Email:

Load new image

preprints.org > 202005.0225.v1

Working Paper Review Version 1 This version is not peer-reviewed

Controlled COVID-19 Infection in Hospitals Could Achieve A Safer Exit Strategy in the Near-Term: Assessing Risks and Benefits

Eleftherios Diamandis ^*

Version 1 : Received: 11 May 2020 / Approved: 13 May 2020 / Online: 13 May 2020 (05:53:07 CEST)

How to cite: Diamandis, E. Controlled COVID-19 Infection in Hospitals Could Achieve A Safer Exit Strategy in the Near-Term: Assessing Risks and Benefits. Preprints 2020, 2020050225 Diamandis, E. Controlled COVID-19 Infection in Hospitals Could Achieve A Safer Exit Strategy in the Near-Term: Assessing Risks and Benefits. Preprints 2020, 2020050225

Cite as:

Diamandis, E. Controlled COVID-19 Infection in Hospitals Could Achieve A Safer Exit Strategy in the Near-Term: Assessing Risks and Benefits. Preprints 2020, 2020050225 Diamandis, E. Controlled COVID-19 Infection in Hospitals Could Achieve A Safer Exit Strategy in the Near-Term: Assessing Risks and Benefits. Preprints 2020, 2020050225

Abstract

Draconian defensive measures have been implemented to combat the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. These important measures constitute a vital current priority but do little to increase communal immunity and avoid future outbreaks. A longer-term exit strategy for a sustainable return to normalcy has yet to be identified. The development of vaccines or effective therapeutics could largely solve the problem, but their timely development cannot be guaranteed. In this setting, and under the expected societal isolation fatigue from extended social distancing, we here propose the idea that at some point after the outbreak’s peak, hospitals, in addition to providing care for infected people who need it, could also be involved in the development of a controlled exit strategy designed to avoid future outbreaks. We postulate that controlled voluntary deliberate infection in a hospital setting and under continuous and close medical observation may offer a safer alternative compared to random en-masse exposure. We discuss potential risks and benefits, highlighting the need for careful consideration of the associated critical ethical issues.

Subject Areas

COVID-19 infection; immunity; risk of COVID-19 infection; pandemics; outbreaks; voluntary infection

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Download PDF

Comments (1)

Comment 1

Received: 13 May 2020
The commenter has declared there is no conflict of interests.

Comment: How would you inform volunteers about consequences and long-time-effects that are yet completely unknown? How can you plan to infect people ''controlled '' on a larger scale-which you would have to if you want to achieve some sort of herd immunity- with a death rate of still round about 1in1000? You need a few 1000 for making a difference so you kill some of them on the way to your goal. The survival does not depend on the availability of ventilators alone.

+ Respond to this comment

Your full name

Your affiliation information (e.g., name of your university/institution/organization)

Not displayed online.

Your Email address (not made public)

Importance: How significant is the paper to the field?

Outstanding/highlight paper

Significant contribution

Incremental contribution

No contribution

I am not qualified to judge

Soundness of evidence/arguments presented:

Conclusions well supported

Most conclusions supported (minor revision needed)

Incomplete evidence (major revision needed)

Hypothesis, unsupported conclusions, or proof-of-principle

I am not qualified to judge

Please leave your comment to this article below.

Mathematical equations can be typed in either LaTeX formats \\[ ... \\] or $$ ... $$, or MathML format <math> ... </math>. Try the LaTeX or MathML example.

Type equation:

Preview:

Copy equation into message below

Close menu

Please click a symbol to insert it into the message box below:

Please enter the link here:

Please enter a valid URL

Optionally, you can enter text that should appear as linked text:

Copy link into message below

Close menu

Please enter or paste the URL to the image here (please only use links to jpg/jpeg, png and gif images):

Please enter a valid URL

Copy image into message below

Close menu

Type author name or keywords to filter the list of references in this group (you can add a new citation under Bibliography):

No existing citations in Discussion Group

Wikify editor is a simple editor for wiki-style mark-up. It was written by MDPI for Sciforum in 2014. The rendering of the mark-up is based on Wiky.php with some tweaks. Rendering of mathematical equations is done with MathJax. Please send us a message for support or for reporting bugs.

Close menu

Please declare any conflicts of interest you may have with this paper, financial or otherwise.

I do not have a conflict of interest

I would like to declare a conflict of interest

Display my name on the website Send my name and email address to the authors I want to get recognition for my comment on Publons

[what’s this?]. Link your accounts here

Captcha

Renew

I accept the following conditions:

Comments must follow the standards of professional discourse and should focus on the scientific content of the article. Insulting or offensive language, personal attacks and off-topic remarks will not be permitted. Comments must be written in English. Preprints reserves the right to remove comments without notice. Readers who post comments are obliged to declare any competing interests, financial or otherwise.

We encourage comments and feedback from a broad range of readers. See criteria for comments and our diversity statement.

Leave a public comment
Send a private comment to the author(s)