We ended smallpox with vaccines. Smallpox killed over 500 million human beings in its last 100 years and had been killing human beings for around 3,500 years before then. “Herd immunity” isn’t locked in stone. You lose it when the people who have immunity die and new people without immunity are born unless you inoculate them.
We didn’t eradicate smallpox by having smallpox parties and getting everyone sick with it. It spent 3,500 years killing us very effectively. Then we figured out enough about vaccines and herd immunity and distribution and logistics to launch a worldwide effort against smallpox. And for the first time in known history, a disease was completely eradicated from the face of the Earth.
Vaccines work. But they are not all created equal. And the risk analyses are not all created equal.
I’m all for vaccines when the risk/reward formula makes it worthwhile. But that is not always the case. I’m certainly not going to be a beta tester for an iffy vaccine for a virus as mild as this one.