Smallpox and how it was defeated - it too was a killer

I have given a lot of thought to our present predicament namely the Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19). It is such a long time since the world has been in the midst of a life-threatening disease. Thinking back to the 50s and the long lines of students waiting to receive their booster for smallpox reminds me that my generation is now in their 70s and I can remember that millions of people still died of smallpox when we were young. Vaccination was really the only way to defeat smallpox and it is still true. Vaccination is likely the only way to eliminate this Coronavirus. The scars caused  by COVID-19 appear to be more common rather than less common and so the best way to handle the eradication of COVID-19 remains vaccination because those people thus scarred would have less of a chance to survive a second encounter. 

Anyone under 45 years of age in Canada now was not even vaccinated for smallpox because it just didn't occur in Canada once vaccination was given and so the knowledge of the scourge of this disease passed from our historical memory and here we are in 2020 with people actually debating whether they would be vaccinated. When smallpox was not eradicated people just got their smallpox shots; you couldn't get into Canada without proof of vaccination at that time.

 Smallpox as a disease was first noted prior to 1 AD in Egyptian mummies. All that is really know is that it occurred in regular outbreaks throughout the first two millenia and estimates give total death counts in the area of 400,000 in the 18th century alone in Europe. As many as 300 million worldwide may have died in the 20th century. We definitely need to look at COVID-19 from that viewpoint. It isn't going to go away; the death rate trying to acquire Herd Immunity would be horrendous and that did not work with smallpox. Inoculation is also likely the only means of defeating COVID-19.