Comment by ChrisMarshallNY
7 months ago
I remember when it was announced that smallpox was eradicated (Yeah, I'm old enough to have a smallpox vaccination scar).
I remember someone moaning about how we had driven a species to extinction.
We're a funny lot, really. I've learned not to take us too seriously; especially the folks that take themselves very seriously.
It is questionable whether smallpox is alive and so whether it can go extinct. If in some sense it can go extinct it seems both the Americans and Russians are determined to keep it alive "just in case".
Nobody was much concerned when we eradicated another infectious virus. Unlike Smallpox there was no "military rationale" for keeping copies on ice, so Rinderpest is gone. It appears that its close human relation, Measles, will be around for a long time though because "I don't believe in facts" trumps "My child has died of a preventable disease". So that's certainly evidence for you're "We're a funny lot" theory.
A fairly common horror movie trope, is some Eocene zombiemaker virus, being thawed out of the permafrost.