I recall when almost every kid caught the measles and people thought nothing of it. Parents threw German measles parties for their daughters so they wouldn’t bear deformed children. How did we manage to survive?
Hard to believe people could have been that stupid. Measles are a serious business.
Fortunately, unlike coronaviruses, measles and its cousins (Canine distemper, Rinderpest) can be made into good, conventional vaccines. Granted enough human cooperation, measles can be eradicated and deserves to be the next big target of such if we can ever finish off polio. Its bovine cousin, Rinderpest [Dutch for 'cattle plague'], already has been eradicated via animal vaccination. Rinderpest infected a range of animals, but not people, so modern folks discount it out of ignorance. But for its target animals it was as bad, or even worse, than bubonic plague or smallpox for people.
I’m in my 70’s. I never had measles, mumps, or chicken pox. I was around kids with those diseases. The only such disease I ever caught was Scarlet Fever.