  Increasing the infection risk early in an epidemic is individually and
socially optimal under some parameter values. The reason is that the early
patients recover or die before the peak of the epidemic, which flattens the
peak. This improves welfare if the peak exceeds the capacity of the healthcare
system and the social loss rises rapidly enough in the number infected. The
individual incentive to get infected early comes from the greater likelihood of
receiving treatment than at the peak when the disease has overwhelmed
healthcare capacity. Calibration to the Covid-19 pandemic data suggests that
catching the infection at the start was individually optimal and for some loss
functions would have reduced the aggregate loss.
