From my limited understanding the reason we have vaccines is to
prevent serious illness and deaths. If there were no vaccines as
applied in the past when an unusual virus struck it would take out
tens of millions. Under that system its survival of the fitest I guess
and plain luck for some who somehopw avoid getting infected.
Achieving herd immunity can mean a huge death toll.
The vaccines help our immune system to produce antibodies
as a result of dead covid cells being injected into our body
that will recognise live covid when it hits and prevent the covid
cells from multiplying at a rapid rate. Thats how I understand it works.
Its our own immune system getting some help so it can act faster to
basically deactivate the virus.
If we relied on just our natural immune system the consequences could be
terrible even for what we now regard as minor illnesses. Antibiotics,
vaccines and other medical treatments have markedly improved outcomes.
Before modern medicine people would die earlier as evidenced by average
lifespans in the past. For example the reason they set the first age pension
here at age 65 was that the impost would not be that great because at that time
not many lived beyond that age. Now the average lifespan is around 80 years of age.
Below extracts from the National Museum. It tells you that when they introduced
The National Pension Scheme in 1908 the average lifespan was just 55 for men
and 59 for women.
Thank heaven things have improved so much over time due to in part modern medicine.
"National pension scheme
In 1908, the Australian Parliament passed the Invalid and Old-Age Pensions Act, which incorporated the royal commission’s recommendations. The reason for the delay was a debate over how to fund the scheme. Negotiations led to legislation that would allow the federal government to withhold some of the money it distributed to the states from customs and excise.
It is important to remember the great difference in life expectancy between then and now. At Federation, only four per cent of the population were over the age of 65.2Men could expect to live 55 years, and women for 59 years.
The financial cost of such a scheme was very small in comparison to today, when 14 per cent of the population is over 65 and both sexes can expect to live into their eighties.
https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/age-and-invalid-pensions
