As officials in the US struggle to get people to practise social distancing, a new threat to public health has emerged - COVID-19 parties.
Officials in the state of Washington say they've so far uncovered two events where people were invited to come along and catch the deadly disease, which has killed more than 72,000 Americans and 265,000 people worldwide.
"We want to be able to start to reopen our community," Walla Walla County director of community health Meghan Debolt told the New York Times.
"But if our community isn't practising proper physical distancing and social distancing guidelines, and they are intentionally trying to go and contract COVID-19, that sets us back pretty far from being able to open."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it "strongly recommends against hosting or participating in these events".
So far two people are known to have caught the disease at such parties, telling doctors they believed they'd recover quickly and could then start to go about their lives as normal.
They reportedly didn't know about the growing evidence of serious long-term effects the disease can have, and did not think about how they might end up infecting others more at risk of complications or death.
"They feel really bad now, knowing that they put families and friends and others at risk," said Debolt.
Neighbours told local TV news station KIRO7 they saw adverts for the parties on social media.
"I have three young kids who are currently contagious," one post on Nextdoor reportedly said. "If you would like your kids immunized, let me know and we can make arrangements for a play date."
There is no known cure for the disease, and no vaccine yet. It's not clear either whether recovering from the disease makes you immune, or if the disease is mutating slow enough to be controlled by a single vaccine.
"Health officials stress that there is much we don't know about COVID-19," Walla Walla County health officials said in a statement.
"Epidemiologists don't know if immunity is a sure thing, if reinfection is possible, or if [the] virus could continue living inside you. They do know that even the young can be hospitalised, survivors may suffer long-term damage, and even a 'mild' case isn't mild."
The US has struggled to keep people in lockdown and practising social distancing, with many seeing it as an attack on their freedoms. In recent weeks, thousands have attended protests against measures intended to slow the virus' spread. The US has had more deaths and reported cases of the disease than any other country.
