'Ridiculous': Doctors sound alarm over Aussie 'Covid parties'
Health authorities are warning against Aussies participating in an emerging Covid-19 trend.
With cases of coronavirus mounting across Australia, there are reports some people are attending "Covid parties" to deliberately catch the virus, resigned to the fact they might inevitably get it anyway.
Some believe it will provide immunity from Covid-19, while others simply want to be forced into self-isolation now so they don’t have to spend seven days locked down at a later time which could inconvenience them.
Chief Health Officer John Gerrard implored people not to deliberately get coronavirus at reported “Covid-19 parties”.
"The best way to get immunity to this virus is through vaccination, not through Covid parties, they are ridiculous so please stop them," he said.
“Covid-19 parties”, as the CHO is referring to, involve mass gatherings of people all trying to get the virus.
Such is the emerging trend and concern over it, The World Health Organisation has specifically advised against them. The WHO’s technical lead for Covid-19 Dr Maria Van Kerkhove called the parties “very dangerous”.
Former Deputy Chief Health Officer Dr Nick Coatsworth advised against people attending events to get Covid-19 regardless of their vaccination status.
“If you have not been vaccinated, don't go and try to get Covid, that would be very unadvisable indeed,” he told Sunrise on Wednesday.
“If you have been vaccinated, I don't think it is a good idea to go and actively try and get an infection.”
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Vaccinated or not, coronavirus has made even the healthiest people violently ill and even killed them.
James Kondilios, 23, a powerlifter and science graduate from Canberra, was fully vaccinated against Covid-19 but died from the virus.
Mr Kondilios, who represented Australia and won a bronze medal at the Power Lifting World Championships in Finland in 2015, had no underlying health conditions either.
Dr Chris Moy, the vice-president of the Australian Medical Association, told The Project on Tuesday night if everyone deliberately catches Covid-19 at the same time it will just place more pressure on health systems.
“What we need to do is to try to slow this down as much as possible so we don’t get this huge peak of people in hospital at the same time,” Dr Moy told the program.
“What we need to do is buy time to get as many boosters in people’s arms.”
NSW recorded more than 34,000 cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday while Victoria added more than 40,000 to its state total.
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