‘You’re playing with dynamite’: Experts warn people to stop deliberately getting Covid to ‘get it over with’

Doctors across the US have said there is a dangerous trend of people deliberately trying to get Omicron ‘to get it over with’.

It’s “all the rage,” Dr Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told CNN. Other doctors, including Dr Robert Murphy, executive director of the Havey Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine have also seen this idea spreading across the nation. “You’d be crazy to try to get infected with this. It’s like playing with dynamite,” he said.

The trend has appeared to catch on with all kinds of people not just those who get most of their information on social media, but also the fully-vaccinated and those who are considered very well-educated.

Doctors are warning that Omicron is not a cold, and that milder cases can leave people bed-ridden, with a sore throat and heavy congestion, plus body aches and a high fever. “It’s a life-threatening disease,” said Dr Murphy.

Getting Omicron is “an experience best avoided,” said Dr Bob Wachter, the chairman of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

“Lower your guard and it’ll pounce,” the doctor remarked.

Those who are 65 or older, or have weakened immune systems, diabetes or chronic kidney, cardiac, pulmonary, neurologic or liver diseases are more at risk of Covid.

While doctors maintain that if you catch Omicron you are less likely to be hospitalised and die from it, over other strains, it doesn’t not mean it’s not a serious disease. “That doesn’t mean that it can’t be a severe illness,” said Offit.

There is also a risk of getting long-Covid. An estimated 100 million people around the world have or have had long Covid-19, according to a study by researchers at the University of Michigan in November.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that symptoms can include severe fatigue, fever, dizziness, shortness of breath, brain fog, heart palpitations, muscle and abdominal pain, mood changes, diarrhea and sleep difficulties.

Covid can also cause permanent damage to the kidneys, lungs and heart and kidneys, as well as mental health issues.

Another reason not to catch Omicron is so you don’t spread it to those who are unvaccinated, more vulnerable, and could have weakened immune systems or underlying health conditions. The more cases, the more pressure there will be on health services and this will have a knock-on effect on patients suffering from other serious conditions.

There is an average of more than 700,000 new daily coronavirus cases in the US – more than at any previous point in the pandemic. “The coming weeks are going to be challenging,” said Jeffrey Zients in a White House in a press briefing on 5 January. As of 11 January, 80 per cent of ICU hospital beds were occupied across the country.