Is there a way of administering the SARS-COV-2 virus safely? (as in a poor man's vaccine)
Knowing that the normal entry points of the virus to the body are the nose, mouth and eye:
www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/modes-of-transmission-of-virus-causing-covid-19-implications-for-ipc-precaution-recommendations
would it be possible to purposely administer the virus to someone so that it will only result in mild symptoms? Maybe even infecting other areas inside the body (by let's say injection) where it cannot spread too much.
It can be useful in situations where the probability of catching the virus in the long run is very high. For example one may prefer to infect the eye and protect the other entry points if possible.
In the same line of thought, maybe infect and then being knowledgeable about the infection one can start the treatment even before the first symptoms or at the first symptoms and aim for later immunity.
The general strategy involves trying to choose the entry point, "inventing" a new entry point and/or choosing the moment of infection to have the optimal conditions for the treatment applied to covid-19. This cannot be worse for someone compared with becoming infected "naturally" and it can make sense when there is a state of big urgency and no time for a vaccine.
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There is no known way to infect yourself with a "safe" dose of SARS-CoV-2. The eyes are listed as a portal of infection which is why health workers wear eye protection (goggles, face shields ).
Once the virus infects human cells it starts to replicate creating more virus. At some stage the immune system will ramp up and detect the virus but this takes time. Even if you find a dose of the virus to infect yourself, how are you going to count a few hundred or a few thousand virus particles and make sure you don't exceed the infectious dose? And that may depend also on host factors.
The average number of viral particles needed to establish an infection is known as the infectious dose. We don’t know what this is for covid-19 yet, but given how rapidly the disease is spreading, it is likely to be relatively low – in the region of a few hundred or thousand particles, says Willem van Schaik at the University of Birmingham, UK.
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