Viral tweet explains what people did before vaccines

A tweet explaining what people did before vaccines has gone viral. Photo / 123RF

A tweet about vaccination has gone viral after it pointed out the very obvious thing people did before vaccines existed.

The tweet was meant as a take-down to the anti-vaxxer argument that there was a time before vaccines came along when people survived without those anyway.

"People say 'well what did people do before vaccines/antibiotics/pasteurisation?' as if that's an argument for going natural," Elise Kumar wrote on Twitter.

"They died, Carol. A lot of people died," she added.

People say “well what did people do before vaccines/antibiotics/pasteurisation?” as if that’s an argument for going natural.

They died, Carol. A lot of people died.

— Elise Kumar 🤷‍♀️ cupboard ghost 🚪👻 (@elisekumar) September 8, 2018

The tweet was posted only four days ago and has already been liked more than 830,000 times and retweeted by more than 230,000 Twitter users.

Kumar, from Sydney, made a point with her tweet that resonated with many others across the social network, who loved the simple way she explained why vaccines are important.

"People rather let their kids die than having a small insignificant chance of them turning out to be autistic. Let that sink in," one person commented, before adding: "That is, assuming vaccines even causes autism. Which they don't."

"Another scary and little mentioned fact: a rare but possible complication of measles is a fatal encephalitis that occurs 7-10 years after recovery from the initial illness (subacute sclerosing panencephalitis). So, yay vaccines," another Twitter user replied.