To die of Covid is a terrible death. It’s a suffocation. Which can affect mainly older people, but also younger people. Infected people who were convinced that they would not be vaccinated turn out of the hospital bed with desperate appeals to warn others – like the 56-year-old Italian Maria G. She has risked her life, she warns: Hospital, are not vaccinated and regret it. ” Or shortly before his corona death, the US family man Michael Freedy († 39) regretted: “I should have taken the damn vaccination.”
The fate of numerous corona victims apparently does not prevent a growing number of young French from deliberately contracting Covid. This to save yourself a vaccination. Those who have recovered are considered immune for a certain period of time and they receive the coveted health pass, which has also been required for restaurants and bars since August. The trend, epidemiologists warn, is dangerous. The disease also brings with it a high risk for young people and their environment.
Vaccine skeptics in France come to the “pass sanitaire” with a coronavirus disease. In addition to those who have been vaccinated and those who have tested negative, those who have antigens and who have recovered from Covid-19 within the last six months receive the so-called health passport. The “pass sanitaire” is a coveted free pass among French opponents of vaccination, for which many like to be infected: “In the worst case, it ties me to bed for a few days,” the TV channel “Franceinfo” quotes a 20-year-old. “In the best case scenario, I have no symptoms at all.”
Get sick in order to enjoy life again
The newspaper “Le Figaro” said a 25-year-old, he no longer wears his mask, wash his hands less and is working on a “Covid plan”: “My wife and I want to get Covid to get the health passport.” He does not want to wait weeks for the two vaccinations and have to test himself daily: “I hate making appointments and having to wait for something that is absolutely useless to me”.
The 20-year-old student Clémence told the newspaper: “To be honest, if a friend tells me that she has Covid and I know that I can isolate myself for several weeks after that, then I might go to her and let her cough on me. » The health pass is very important: “Without it, we can no longer enjoy the joys of life,” says the philosophy student.
A interviewed 24-year-old named Jennifer does not necessarily want to be infected with the virus on purpose. But she “would rather have it and quarantine me and let my immune system know how to naturally defeat the disease.”
«Complete nonsense»
Cerise (19), an educator in a nursing home for people with disabilities, also prefers infection to vaccination, despite the risk that she could become seriously ill or develop long covid: “My body will be able to try to close itself as with any other virus heal.” She is not the type who is afraid of “natural” things. “But I’m scared of the vaccine because it’s not natural. Antibodies would “work very well” at their age.
Similar statements are making the rounds on social media, although the facts seem not to be fully understood. As is well known, an infection is not a free pass for a future without any risk of Covid. But one user said on Twitter: “I would rather have Covid once than to have to be vaccinated every three months until the end of my life.” Others would have lived in quarantine with infected people but simply couldn’t get the virus.
The French epidemiologist Philippe Amouyel describes attempts to consciously become infected with Covid as “complete nonsense”. That «Playing with the virus» is not so harmless, Amouyel told the broadcaster LCI. He condemns the trend, which is also fueled by certain doctors, as “stupidity”. Even if a Covid infection is initially asymptomatic, the risk of long-term consequences should not be underestimated. (kes)