Coronavirus FAQ: Is it a good idea to get COVID before I'm over 60 and at higher risk?

The short answer - hell, no!

I'm in my 50s. If I'm going to get COVID, it seems like it would be better to get it before I'm older and in a higher-risk category. So — should I try to get COVID before I turn 60?

We spoke to three specialists and they all agree.

Definitely not, says Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease physician at Stanford University.

"It's lunacy," says Dr. Sarah Fortune, professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

"There are very few times in medicine where we say go ahead and get the disease, because for the most part getting the disease is not good," says Dr. Fred Pelzman, associate professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. "Once a vaccine became available for chicken pox, for example, no one was saying, go ahead and expose your child to chicken pox."