Comment by Ivar Tångring (ivar-tangring) on Can we use Variolation to deal with the Coronavirus? · 2020-04-20T05:20:13.770Z · LW · GW

It seems reasonable, that getting infected in the skin or eye, would give the immune system a head start, even if the virus eventually does spread to the lungs through the blood stream. When virus is shed in the lungs, it spreads through air flow, from a possible single first infection point, all throughout both lungs, in very short time. That kind of airflow acceleration of the infection does not happen if the infection happens in the eye. To develop the shades of gray, it might also be the case, that an infection in the nose, by a small dose, is far less deadly than an infection by large amount of virus in the lungs. Thus, deliberate infection seems preferable to random infection.