[soperj]

We had smallpox for centuries, same with measles, mumps, rubella, polio, etc etc. AIDS came about in the 80s. How's that natural herd immunity for AIDS going?

You would have ended up with full hospitals everywhere and people dying in the streets, and the Delta variant way before a vaccine was ready if we didn't do lockdowns.

[whimsicalism]

I'm a strong supporter of strong measures to combat covid, but your question about AIDS is obviously disingenuous. AIDS kills almost every one who gets it (e: in the 70s - of course as a reply mentions, it is not nearly as deadly today and very few caught HIV cases progress to AIDS in the first place now), but it didn't spread very far compared to covid, so of course no herd immunity would develop.

[Schiendelman]

Your information seems out of date - AIDS is now mostly survivable and has been for perhaps a decade.