No, the numbers were quite staggering, especially with the baby boom after the second world war. The vaccines didn’t just save lives, they prevented huge numbers of damaged children. The encephalitis rate is 1/1000, pneumonia 1/20 and severe ear infection 1/10 and that’s now, when American children are far better fed and medical care vastly superior that it was 70 years ago. And this is just measles. Rubella causes birth defects and blindness, mumps can result in encephalitis, meningitis and deafness, not just sterility.
One of the reasons states thought they could close these institutions was because they no longer had a steady stream of adults brain damaged as children that needed housing when their families passed away or could no longer care for them.
Just because you saw a lot of them, does not mean the numbers were statistically significant.
The death rate was <1/100th of the flu death rate, and everyone endeavored to ensure their children were infected.
I’d guess more brains have been damaged by flu fevers than these diseases, but I can’t find data.
Disability rate? I can’t find hard data yet. If you find some please be sure to shoot it my way.
The accurate facts are important.