> Do people really believe the virus won't be there afterwards? Of course people believe the virus will be there afterwards, it will almost certainly never go

> Do people really believe the virus won't be there afterwards? Of course people believe the virus will be there afterwards, it will almost certainly never go away. Look at how much effort the world put into eradicating Smallpox. That effort will not be repeated given the current conservative politics in the US, Britain, and Russia. Modern conservatism is financially backed by the kind of capitalists that have enormous amounts of cash to spend on preventing regulation of their industries (like oil, health insurance, for-profit universities, churches). That has led to a massive anti-science, anti-social safety net, anti-vaxx backlash. It will be impossible to get the entire world to coöperate and get eradicate it as we did with Smallpox. But. By buying time and saving lives now, we give ourselves a chance to develop vaccines. In functioning developed countries, we will build herd immunity through vaccination. Meanwhile, countries like the USA will have regular COVID-19 outbreaks in pockets where somebody decides not to vaccinate their children, just as we do with Measles and other entirely preventable diseases. Sorry to be so gloom-and-doom, but connect the dots between "YOLO, I'm young, I'm healthy, I'm off to Spring Break in Florida and Hawaii during a pandemic, sucks to be anybody who gets it from me," and, "Vaccines? We don't need any of that elitist Liberal malarky." --- p.s. You got a lot of downvotes. Nobody can explain exactly why any comment gets downvoted, but my suggestion is that your questions are good, but leading off with a statement that you are struggling to see how this will help may be perceived as jumping to a conclusion without paying attention to any of the knowledge about this that is readily available, and then expressing absolute confidence in your evaluation of what will happen. I cannot read your mind, but others may perceive it as being a bit Dunning-Kruger, like you have jumped to a conclusion without doing even cursory research, and assuming that you know enough that you don't need to listen to any of the many experts who are saying the opposite of what you are saying. Again, I don't purport to tell you what you're thinking, just sharing a (quite possibly wrong) conjecture for why your otherwise good question gets a negative response.