I’m old enough to remember iron lungs taking over floors on hospitals. Anti-vaxxers claim that the fact that Smallpox disappeared worldwide after the vaccine became widely available was that it “burned itself out”, despite having plagued the world for millennia. Likewise, polio disappeared from the world where the vaccine was available. Again, they claim it “burned itself out”. How does an infectious disease burn itself out, short of killing every available victim?
I’m old enough to remember iron lungs taking over floors on hospitals. Anti-vaxxers claim that the fact that Smallpox disappeared worldwide after the vaccine became widely available was that it “burned itself out”, despite having plagued the world for millennia. Likewise, polio disappeared from the world where the vaccine was available. Again, they claim it “burned itself out”. How does an infectious disease burn itself out, short of killing every available victim?