Elimination of Respiratory Viruses

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#1
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I have been hearing that we have never eliminated a respiratory virus as an argument against the constant moving of the goalpost for COVID-19 measures. Since I try not to take statements like these as truth without verifying them, I thought this community would be a good one to present the claim to.

Are you aware of a respiratory virus that has been eliminated?

And as a related question, do you believe it is reasonable and achievable to attempt to eliminate any respiratory virus?
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@Fruit_Inspector
Two infectious diseases have successfully been eradicated: smallpox in humans and rinderpest in ruminants. There are four ongoing programs, targeting the human diseases poliomyelitis (polio), yaws, dracunculiasis (Guinea worm), and malaria.
Smallpox can be considered a respiratory virus.

SARS and MERS are two respiratory viruses that we had good success controlling with quarantines, masks, and social distancing but neither of those were eliminated.

The arguments that COVID quarantine and hygiene are ineffective in slowing the disease's progress are easily disproved but those measures are not recommended as part of a plan to eliminate the virus, rather those measures are trying to slow the rate of the pandemic to prevent overwhelmed healthcare systems and mitigate impacts to the economy while the vaccine is being propagated.  The moving of the goal posts is not in response to the disease but to the demands of freedom.  If the whole human population just locked down for three weeks, the progress of the disease would likely be controlled, but humans just don't do that very well.  Therefore, restrictions are raised and applied with a mind towards maximizing freedom traded against the disease's progress.
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WIKI

The concept of disease eradication is sometimes confused with disease elimination, which is the reduction of an infectious disease's prevalence in a regional population to zero, or the reduction of the global prevalence to a negligible amount. Further confusion arises from the use of the term 'eradication' to refer to the total removal of a given pathogen from an individual (also known as clearance of an infection), particularly in the context of HIV and certain other viruses where such cures are sought.

The targeting of infectious diseases for eradication is based on narrow criteria, as both biological and technical features determine whether a pathogenic organism is (at least potentially) eradicable. The targeted pathogen must not have a significant non-human (or non-human-dependent) reservoir (or, in the case of animal diseases, the infection reservoir must be an easily identifiable species, as in the case of rinderpest). This requires sufficient understanding of the life cycle and transmission of the pathogen. An efficient and practical intervention (such as a vaccine or antibiotic) must be available to interrupt transmission. Studies of measles in the pre-vaccination era led to the concept of the critical community size, the minimal size of the population below which a pathogen ceases to circulate.[3] The use of vaccination programs before the introduction of an eradication campaign can reduce the susceptible population. The disease to be eradicated should be clearly identifiable, and an accurate diagnostic tool should exist. Economic considerations, as well as societal and political support and commitment, are other crucial factors that determine eradication feasibility.
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So I did a bit of digging and it seems like one aspect that is not made clear from the generalized claim "we have never eliminated a respiratory virus" is animal reservoirs.

For smallpox, humans seem to be the only reservoir. For MERS, camels and possibly alpacas seem to be the only reservoirs apart from humans. I haven't really looked into SARS-CoV-1 yet.

So I think the argument would rather be trying to say that SARS-CoV-2 will not be eradicated in the same way that other respiratory viruses with similar animal reservoirs have not been eradicated. So smallpox would not be comparable because there are no animal reservoirs, only humans.

But what would you say the government's goal is with our current virus? Elimination, eradication, or something else?
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@Fruit_Inspector
I have been hearing that we have never eliminated a respiratory virus as an argument against the constant moving of the goalpost for COVID-19 measures. Since I try not to take statements like these as truth without verifying them, I thought this community would be a good one to present the claim to.

Are you aware of a respiratory virus that has been eliminated?

And as a related question, do you believe it is reasonable and achievable to attempt to eliminate any respiratory virus?
Hey, I like the solid scientific questions! And since this is virology, I'd love to weigh in.

To the first question, it depends on what you classify as a respiratory virus. I'd hesitate to call smallpox a respiratory virus, and technically that is the only virus that has ever been truly eliminated from the population. Poliovirus might be considered respiratory because it affects respiration, but I'd say it's a nervous system disease that affects respiration by proxy. To Oro's point, SARS and MERS are practically eliminated, but the issue there is that they come from animal reservoirs and any vaccines that have been produced came too late to be all that useful. The better examples I can think of regarding near-eliminations of viral diseases (at least in certain populations or even countries) are things like Rubella and Measles, which are clear examples of respiratory viruses that are clearly addressed by vaccines and, when vaccination is widespread enough, have been eliminated from those vaccinated populations.

But to the point of your second question, part of what's necessary to consider is the relative mutagenesis of each virus. Many viruses are highly mutagenic and often escape immune responses. Those are your Influenzas (which tend to modify their surface proteins quite a bit) and your cold viruses (which are often composed of multiple individual viruses and can get really complicated). There's also other considerations such as the route of infection. Many respiratory infections get into the lungs where the immune response is strong and, if it's directed appropriately, effective. However, many others (often cold viruses) don't actually go that far into the body, staying in the upper respiratory tract. Those viruses tend to elicit strong immune responses for the purpose of spreading, so even if you do vaccinate against them, the effectiveness of said vaccination against getting sick is minimal and against spreading the virus is almost absent.

Long story short, it's muddy. Some respiratory viruses definitely can be eliminated with existing techniques. Most likely can't.
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@Fruit_Inspector
But what would you say the government's goal is with our current virus? Elimination, eradication, or something else?
I'd suspect they're after these lofty goals, but if they were being realistic, the goal would be to drastically restrict the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and to minimize incidence of severe cases. That's really all you can be confident in achieving with a successful and widespread vaccination effort.

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I figured there was probably some clarification needed on the general claim of never having eliminated a respiratory virus. That information is definitely helpful in measuring the consistency of that argument.

Similar to the question of eliminating respiratory viruses, do you believe that SARS-CoV-2 specifically is a respiratory virus that can be eliminated/eradicated?

Also, you have probably stated this in other posts but what is your opinion on the current vaccination effort for SARS-CoV-2? It seems to me that it is not unreasonable for people to wait for at least 2 to 5 years of safety data in human trials for a new vaccine technology. Nor does it seem like a wise plan to try and vaccinate the entire global population without said safety data.

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@Fruit_Inspector
Similar to the question of eliminating respiratory viruses, do you believe that SARS-CoV-2 specifically is a respiratory virus that can be eliminated/eradicated?
Probably not. Coronaviruses are notorious for mutations, as are RNA viruses in general. What I suspect will happen with time is the same thing that happens with most viruses of this sort: mutations will result in a variation of the virus that is relatively harmless, that virus will outcompete the other variants, and it will become part of the usual set of seasonal colds. I'd suspect the vaccine would make that happen faster since it's targeting one of the main virulence factors of the virus (the spike protein), where mutations could do the most harm to the virus's ability to cause harm.

Also, you have probably stated this in other posts but what is your opinion on the current vaccination effort for SARS-CoV-2? It seems to me that it is not unreasonable for people to wait for at least 2 to 5 years of safety data in human trials for a new vaccine technology. Nor does it seem like a wise plan to try and vaccinate the entire global population without said safety data.
I don't think any of the existing safety concerns are very troubling. The most we can say is that we don't know what happens far down the line, but I honestly don't know what anyone would characterize as a means for vaccination to cause harm 10, 20 or 30 years out. If we're talking about the RNA vaccines, the nucleic acids are inherently prone to degradation over time, which results in their elimination from the body within 72 hours, about the same as the protein products they yield. I can't fathom a harm that can result after those things disappear from the body. Beyond that, I think we've pretty clearly conducted a very large scale confirmation of both vaccine efficacy and safety. Hundreds of millions have been vaccinated and the amount of harm caused is exceedingly minimal. Contrast that with the virus itself and I think the vaccine has very easily proven itself. I wouldn't say it's unwise to vaccinate a large portion of the population at all.

That being said, I understand why people are concerned, and I don't think it ever makes sense to force people to take a vaccine who are. That generally leads to a lot more problems than it solves. I think a lot of those people either don't understand the mechanisms of the vaccine or feel that there is something insidious included in it, and obviously I have problems with both of those conclusions, but not everyone is terribly familiar with this kind of technology, nor would I expect them to be. I think we'd all be better off if more of the population was vaccinated, but I also know that accomplishing that takes buy-in. I just wish I believed that enough of the population would buy in with more safety data. I get the impression that there are quite a few people who could never be convinced.
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I get the impression that there are quite a few people who could never be convinced.
Well I can personally say that when government officials and organizations constantly lie or contradict themselves (both sides are guilty), it becomes difficult to trust anything they say. So even if the vaccine were completely safe and effective, they have cried wolf too often to convince anyone of anything. Then when any hint of scientific dissent is even alluded to, the information is immediately censored.

But unlike our overly-compensated government bureaucrats,  I also want to be honest in evaluating arguments from both sides, so the information you gave was helpful.
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It's not so much that I'm trusting the government officials or organizations. It's simply very hard for me to believe that so many companies would actively falsify data on this large a scale, give the resulting vaccine out to so many people, and for their cover not to be immediately blown after the first million doses were injected. Hell, even cases like J&J and AstraZeneca where there were side effects found after the fact only came up when the population getting those shots increased dramatically above clinical trials numbers. As for scientific dissent, I will say that I've heard some intriguing arguments about the vaccine and the potential harms it could cause (at least from one or two people - honestly, the vast majority either don't know what they're talking about or are presenting something so rare and specific to very different viruses that it barely warrants discussion), though I also understand that they're fighting a PR war as much as anything else. Not saying that censorship is warranted (if anything, it tends to give many of these people far more credence than they deserve), but I can at least understand why they're doing it.
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@oromagi
Smallpox can be considered a respiratory virus.
Maybe by the pathway of infection; otherwise, no.

The moving of the goal posts is not in response to the disease but to the demands of freedom.  If the whole human population just locked down for three weeks, the progress of the disease would likely be controlled, but humans just don't do that very well.  Therefore, restrictions are raised and applied with a mind towards maximizing freedom traded against the disease's progress.

This is absurd, unsupported speculation. 
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@whiteflame
It's not so much that I'm trusting the government officials or organizations. It's simply very hard for me to believe that so many companies would actively falsify data on this large a scale, give the resulting vaccine out to so many people, and for their cover not to be immediately blown after the first million doses were injected.
Agreed.  A large problem with this is how media talk about things like vaccines.  Their reporting on "side effects" like "blood clots" was reminiscent of how journalists in the 1990s reported that childhood vaccines caused autism.  All of that was very irresponsible. 

Hell, even cases like J&J and AstraZeneca where there were side effects found after the fact only came up when the population getting those shots increased dramatically above clinical trials numbers.
There is essentially no risk to human health presented by either JJ or AZ vaccines.  Claims otherwise are frivolous.  

As for scientific dissent, I will say that I've heard some intriguing arguments about the vaccine and the potential harms it could cause (at least from one or two people - honestly, the vast majority either don't know what they're talking about or are presenting something so rare and specific to very different viruses that it barely warrants discussion), though I also understand that they're fighting a PR war as much as anything else.
Are you talking about Brett Weinstein?  If not, who?  

I've seen a lot of nonsense from people who argue that vaccines are encouraging the formation of "deadly variants."  That, too, is in the category of vaccines-cause-autism level misinformation.  

Not saying that censorship is warranted (if anything, it tends to give many of these people far more credence than they deserve), but I can at least understand why they're doing it.
Def agree censorship is not the answer.  But media need to be more responsible. 
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There is essentially no risk to human health presented by either JJ or AZ vaccines.  Claims otherwise are frivolous. 
I agree that the risks of those two vaccines is essentially null, just felt the need to point out that, even at that level, a huge effort was put out to test those concerns.

Are you talking about Brett Weinstein?  If not, who?  

I've seen a lot of nonsense from people who argue that vaccines are encouraging the formation of "deadly variants."  That, too, is in the category of vaccines-cause-autism level misinformation.  
Honestly couldn’t recall his name when I initially posted this, but that’s the one! Guy has some good points, though I have misgivings about many of them. Knows what he’s talking about, though.

And yeah, the deadly variant argument is bogus on many levels. There are numerous comparisons made to use of antibiotics yielding superbugs, and they frustrate me quite a bit because the people who make them absolutely do not understand the differences between bacterial and viral evolution, nor do they get the difference between a vaccine and an antibiotic.

All else is agreed wholeheartedly.
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@whiteflame
I agree that the risks of those two vaccines is essentially null, just felt the need to point out that, even at that level, a huge effort was put out to test those concerns.
Indeed, and even more significantly, no post-market data supports any risks associated with any of the vaccines currently available in the US, Canada and Europe.  

So it's not just the clinical trials.  It's the post-market data, too.

Honestly couldn’t recall his name when I initially posted this, but that’s the one! Guy has some good points, though I have misgivings about many of them. Knows what he’s talking about, though.
He's right about ivermectin, gain-of-function research and the fact that the virus came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a product of gain-of-function research.  But he is wrong about vaccines, for the most part. 

That being said, I agree that he's smart and knows his stuff.  He also says things few others will, even if they're very obvious.

 There are numerous comparisons made to use of antibiotics yielding superbugs, and they frustrate me quite a bit because the people who make them absolutely do not understand the differences between bacterial and viral evolution, nor do they get the difference between a vaccine and an antibiotic.
I agree.  Viruses do not "mutate" in the same way bacteria develop antibiotic resistance.  Viruses typically do the opposite of what bacteria do, which is become less deadly over time.  Even coronaviruses.

I think a large part of the problem with this species of thought is that people just assume that viruses and bacteria do basically the same thing for the same reason, because that's consistent with the pattern of unsupported woe they hear from the scientifically illiterate media.  Every variant of concern, interest or whatever has been nothing more than the story of catastrophe that never materializes.

It's anti-scientific and irresponsible to scare the public like that without anything even vaguely resembling evidence.  But if it bleeds it leads.  Sadly.