COVID parties are a pandemic urban legend that wont go away

Amid hosts of reasonable fears about the coronavirus pandemic, there’s also one far more dubious threat: “COVID parties.” As Wired explains in a good exploration of the topic, COVID parties (or “corona parties”) are events where people supposedly expose themselves to the coronavirus on purpose. Medical professionals and government officials have periodically warned about these parties, but on closer examination, the reports are usually unverified secondhand reports or outright mistakes.

Despite numerous false alarms, however, the parties keep cropping up in news stories and social media. Last week, The New York Times and other outlets reported on a “COVID party” supposedly held in Texas. A recent Vox story about herd immunity referenced...

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