**Note**: I just got my Flu and COVID-19 shot, so I’m not anti-vax, just curious to know more from people who are better educated on vaccines than I am.
I understand that it’s important for our immune systems to be exposed to viruses in order to build immunity, but why is it that diseases like Polio, Measles, Mumps, and Smallpox are basically nonexistent (save for random outbreaks) while thousands of people will get colds and flus each year and the best we can do is get a flu shot, wash our hands, mask in public spaces and hope you don’t come into contact with someone who’s sick? Could it ever be possible to make a vaccine that completely prevents people from getting colds or flus?
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So the problem is, the cold and the flu are actually lots of different illnesses that feel the same to us. But they’re caused by different pathogens. There are literally 100s of different cold viruses. So we could try and cure one cold virus, but while we’re wasting time do that, the other hundreds of cold viruses are replicating and mutating and creating even more new types! So the more efficient thing to do, in the end, is actually to try and decrease exposure so that there’s less chance of mutating into a new type, and spend our research resources on diseases that are less common and much more deadly.
That’s another important principle to keep in mind: in general (not always, but usually), the more common an infectious disease is, the less bad it is. The more deadly, the less common. This is because if a disease makes you so sick you’re confined to bed and don’t see anyone, or just kills you, you don’t have the opportunity to spread it to other people. Meanwhile people continue their normal days coming into contact with hundreds of people with a cold. This means that the cold and flu just aren’t major medical priorities compared to other diseases.
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