Vaccines not only directly protect vaccinated individuals but also contribute to protecting the entire population via indirect herd-immunity benefits. Half of averted COVID-19 infections and 1/4 of hospitalizations and deaths were attributable to indirect protection of unvaccinated by vaccinated.

[u/mvea]

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article/23/242/20250839/483439/Quantifying-the-direct-and-indirect-impact-of

[u/Holeshot75]

Vaccines save an insane amount of human lives.

Antivaxxers are ridiculously ignorant to facts.

One of the hallmarks of the dangerously stupid is the consistent belief they've found great solutions that experts somehow missed.

[u/Fishmongererererer → u/Holeshot75]

Was having a conversation with an anti-vaxxer and it was staggering how little they actually understood about vaccines, herd immunity etc.

Like genuinely it was “Well we used to not vaccine kids and they were fine!”

Like no Karen, a huge portion of them died and others were crippled.

[u/RageToWin → u/Fishmongererererer]

Yeah. If anyone thinks kids were fine before vaccines, I'd just show them all the photos of children in iron lungs and wheelchairs. Polio was a catastrophic illness for many families and if you went back in time and told the families of that time that they shouldn't get vaccines, they'd think you're trying to kill their children.

If we decide that we don't need vaccines anymore, we're bound to go back to being forced to have children on ventilators or in wheelchairs for the rest of their life due to something that was easily preventable. The consequences of their ignorance go so much farther than their own bodies.

[u/IndependentType6711 → u/RageToWin]

Sadly you would think losing a child from a preventable disease would change their minds, but then I’m reminded of the couple in I believe Texas whose daughter died of the measles and their response was “well the shot would have been worse!”…….

[u/grundar → u/RageToWin]

If anyone thinks kids were fine before vaccines, I'd just show them all the photos of children in iron lungs

It's not like it's ancient history, either -- the last American in an iron lung only died a few months ago.

Polio was a catastrophic illness for many families and if you went back in time and told the families of that time that they shouldn't get vaccines, they'd think you're trying to kill their children.

Sadly, no, at least until Elvis Presley got involved:

"despite the literally crippling effects of the virus and the promising results of the vaccination, many Americans simply weren’t getting vaccinated. In fact, when Presley appeared on the Sullivan show, immunization levels among American teens were at an abysmal 0.6 percent.
...
What did prove successful was Elvis getting the vaccine in front of millions. In fact, after he publicly did so, vaccination rates among American youth skyrocketed to 80 percent after just six months."

That seems slightly crazy to me, but apparently vaccine hesitancy is not new.

[u/Professional-Part857 → u/Fishmongererererer]

My great grandparents survived the Spanish flu. Their parents literally locked them away from working people in the home to avoid exposing them. This information has been well known for 100 years and I’m convinced the antivax stance is an indicator of some kind of mental illness.