No, this happened. It is unethical science, but thanks to the Overton window shifting to the right and normalization of fascist ideology - flies under the radar, goes mostly under-criticised:

• "Volunteers Infected with COVID Virus: An Unethical Human Medical Experiment Goes Unnoticed" https://www.acsh.org/news/2024/10/08/volunteers-infected-covid-virus-unethical-human-medical-experiment-goes-unnoticed

"With these caveats in mind, we were surprised and puzzled by a recent study published in eClinical Medicine (a Lancet publication). It evaluated cognitive impairment following infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the etiologic agent of COVID-19. This was not a clinical trial designed to test the safety and efficacy of a new treatment, drug, or vaccine. Nor was it an observational cohort of past illness, nor a prospective study that monitored population segments over time.

Rather, the study involved what is called a virus “challenge”: 34 healthy, unvaccinated volunteers between the ages of 18 and 30 were studied, cognitively tested to provide baseline levels of 11 cognitive tasks, and then inoculated with the SARS-CoV-2 virus to determine whether they would contract COVID and if so, whether it would affect their cognitive abilities. Six volunteers “pre-emptively” received the anti-viral drug remdesivir (100mg IV for 5 days) “to mitigate risks of severe illness” (No information is given on how these six were chosen).

[...]

Not surprisingly, cognitive declines were detected compared to baseline measurements taken before the study began. But the study design did not allow for the determination of cause and effect—the effects could well have been due to the stress and disorder of the times, i.e., living through a pandemic: No dose-response calibration was performed either of viral load or disease severity, nor were statistical parameters followed to provide statistical significance of these results. Nor did the cognitive deficit study result in new interventions. Indeed, seemingly, none were tested.

Moreover, given that no official “control” group was part of the study, it is impossible to rule out other confounding variables.

Finally, the participants did not note any subjective cognitive limitations were noted by the participants, meaning that they weren’t even aware they were cognitively challenged, making it difficult to determine whether therapeutic interventions would be indicated or applied. (In other words, if an individual isn’t aware of a cognitive problem, it is likely that they would not seek treatment or medical intervention, even if one were available.)"

Here's the human challenge study in question :

Changes in memory and cognition during the SARS-CoV-2 human challenge study https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(24)00421-8/fulltext