Plus, we have no idea what happens to the infected a few years or a decade from now. If given the choice, not getting sick at all is the best possible outcome.
Only in the US :|
Ok, I'm willing to consider devil's argument, but this is just plain ridiculuous. The great bulk of infected people classsify this as "mild". If you're young, strong, and healthy, your chances of dying from this are basically zero in any common sense way. And far more people are going to "get bankrupt on the way to work" as you say using the current method. We're not trying to find a perfect solution, we are trying to find the better one.
There are zero longitudinal studies about the long-term effects of infection. For all we know, young healthy people could appear to beat the virus, only for it to hide out and plague you with severe health problems down the road. We could have an massive epidemic of a neurodegenerative disease caused by Covid-19 twenty years from now.
I have no desire to roll the dice on that even if the odds look good for me at the moment.
[1] https://epmonthly.com/article/neuropsych-complications-flu-v...
This is hardly a conspiracy theory.
[1] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/coron...
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/13/8146910...
> In 80% of known cases, COVID-19 causes mild to moderate illness, according to a report of a joint World Health Organization-China mission of 25 infectious disease experts held in China late last month.
> At a press conference on March 9, Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, said: "[A] mild infection starts normally with a fever, although it may take a couple of days to get a fever. You will have some respiratory symptoms; you have some aches and pains. You'll have a dry cough. This is what the majority of individuals will have."
> It is "nothing that will make you feel like you need to run to a hospital," says Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
> A mild case of COVID-19 in and of itself is not dangerous.
That all being said, if theories of initial viral loads making a difference are true, it's not that crazy to imagine individuals choosing to self infect with a very small initial viral load so they can just stop needing to tip toe around life with the concern that they infect others, while continuing to isolate on their own. If I lived alone I'd be tempted.