inoculation in the absence of a vaccine
In cases where there is a coming epidemic of a disease which has no vaccine, but a very low mortality rate among healthy people, couldn't it make sense for a subset of the population to (voluntarily) catch the disease as early as possible (and then self-quarantine near care), in order to have immune / non-infectious people for sensitive roles when the main epidemic arrives? For example staff (or family) who care for people with very fragile health, or high contact people like TSA staff.
(I'm amazed that I've heard no discussion of what seems like an obvious question. I searched and searched for answers to this and could not get any relevant results. So I'd also be interested in search phrases that yield relevant answers.)
Some concerns are obvious, such as the risk that a small number of these volunteers could have bad consequences, but if it's going to be an epidemic they're likely to get it naturally anyway, and it seems that some controlled early exposure could still have much more benefit than harm on balance.
The alternative seems to be that an arbitrary number of people in sensitive roles are going to be infectious without even knowing it. I can't imagine how that's a better situation.
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Let's say you’re a strong young healthy family member of a parent or grandparent with precarious respiratory problems. Or perhaps you're a hospice worker; and you spend your days visiting people with very fragile health and don't want to kill them unwittingly. Sure, you wash your hands, you get vaccinated with whatever is available, etc. But what about when there is no vaccine and there is an epidemic that's seriously dangerous to them?
Why not have a methodically prepared system for letting certain people in sensitive roles acquire immunity the old fashioned way... by getting sick [on purpose] and getting over it? Thousands of soldiers, firefighters, police, etc. take on greater risks than that in their jobs, so it's not like nobody is ever willing to take on some risk in serving others.
When something like COVID-19 is forecast to be epidemic or worse and looks really dangerous to people over 70 but just an inconvenience to the young and strong, why not let people volunteer in the first weeks of a clear outbreak (before the system is overwhelmed) to become a buffer of immunity to the people they care for?
Is it just that no one has gotten around to implementing such a thing, or is there a specific reason why nobody seems to be discussing options of taking more control like that (just like vaccines are a form of taking more control) -- rather than just crossing your fingers and hoping you don't kill your dear older parents by accident the next time you fly to visit them?
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