Variolation
Variolation refers specifically to smallpox. The terminology for a similar approach against COVID is &quot;inoculation&quot; not &quot;variolation.&quot; I understand the proponent of it for COVID is an economist and not a medical professional, but keeping the terminology clear is important to avoid confusion. Inoculation is not guaranteed to be effective against covid. Just because there was a version of it called variolation that worked against smallpox before being eliminated because it was not as good as other approaches does not mean inoculation is automatically safe and effective against a completely unrelated virus. Other coronavirus are known to display antibody dependent enhancement, where a weak immune response makes following infections worse, and we already don&#x27;t see consistent, strong responses from people who were sick.<p>What the economist Hanson is essentially suggesting is that we take a worse method of immunization (just the normal live virus) and waive the regulatory burden to show safety and efficacy because a similar approach worked with smallpox. If we are getting into the business of ignoring the requirement for an immunization approach to be clinically validated, then there are a few dozen vaccines with far better theoretical safety and efficacy profiles that we should be using instead. The reason a vaccine isn&#x27;t coming immediately is because we have to show they wont kill people and that they&#x27;ll work, and then we have to scale up production. You dont get to rebrand your worse vaccine approach as &quot;variolation&quot; and then say it should be held to a different standard so you can get the economy humming again.