Originally reported by City News Edmonton, partygoers at the event held around two weeks ago had supposedly attended the gathering with the specific intention of contracting Covid-19 to achieve “natural immunity” against the SARS-CoV2 virus, with “several” of them ending up in hospital including some in ICU in Edmonton.

“I am demoralized and infuriated that people would intentionally add fuel to the inferno, risking onward transmission to others, and potentially landing in the ICU at a time when we have literally a handful of beds left for the entire province,” said Dr. Ilan Schwartz, MD, PhD, an infectious diseases physician and assistant professor at the University of Alberta.

For what should be obvious reasons, it is not recommended to achieve ‘immunity’ to the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus via natural infection. These reasons include the risk of being hospitalized with Covid-19, dying from Covid-19, experiencing the menagerie of chronic symptoms associated with “long Covid” and also transmitting the virus to others. None of these are a risk with immunity acquired via immunization with Covid-19 vaccines, which are widely available all over Canada and are free.

“There is no evidence that natural immunity is better than vaccine generated immunity, and some evidence that vaccine generated immunity is more robust and longer lasting. Getting the vaccine is much much safer than getting the virus,” said Dr. Schwartz.

A recent study found that over a third of people who recovered from Covid-19 did not have any detectable levels of antibodies in their blood with immunity gained after vaccination widely believed to be superior to than following infection with the virus.