Even relatively less dangerous viruses, like influenza, have strong vaccination programs, and relatively more dangerous viruses (measles, mumps, smallpox, etc.) are only words I know because of the vaccines I got as a child. I can't think of a disease with a nontrivial mortality rate that we don't aggressively vaccinate and have public health measures to prevent. Can you?
This was the standard of care for chickenpox (herpes zoster, aka shingles) until 10 or 20 years ago, for example. Sure, the mortality rate is lower, especially among healthy children.
You're off by a decade and possibly two. I'm older than 20, I was vaccinated for Chickenpox. The vaccine has been commercially available for 35 years.
So I'd reiterate the question.
There may have been a vaccine 35 years ago (I'll take your word for it), but it was not the standard of care even ~25 years ago.
(And to be clear, I'm not advocating for exposing people to COVID, at all. You asked a very broad question upthread with an easy counter-example — chickenpox — and I provided the counterexample.)
Destroying civilization in the off chance that it might help is the approach that’s worrisome.
The resultant unwinding of commercial real-estate debt hasn’t even begun. The deflationary spike and follow-on “riding the dragon” of inflationary response by central banks hasn’t even begun.
When we finish consuming our personal reserves, and begin in earnest to try to supply food and lodging to the, what, 50% of the population not “employed” by government, what do you guess is going to happen.
It will be illuminating, at least, to those who think they understand how civilization works...