> The only human virus ever to be eradicated was smallpox, and that took 200 years
Bullshit; it would not take 200 years with our current level of technology and understanding.
Smallpox was declared by the WHO to be eradicated in 1980. The last naturally occurring case was in 1977.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_vaccine
"The smallpox vaccine was the first vaccine to be developed against a contagious disease. In 1796, the British doctor Edward Jenner demonstrated that an infection with the relatively mild cowpox virus conferred immunity against the deadly smallpox virus. Cowpox served as a natural vaccine until the modern smallpox vaccine emerged in the 20th century. From 1958 to 1977, the World Health Organization conducted a global vaccination campaign that eradicated smallpox, making it the only human disease to be eradicated."
Really, if we honestly look at it, the actual eradication of smallpox took only 20 years. The 1796-195x years were just hobbling along with poor vaccines and half-assed effort.
Also, most of the focused effort was only the last 10 years of that.
"Smallpox was eradicated by a massive international search for outbreaks, backed up with a vaccination program, starting in 1967. It was organised and co-ordinated by a World Health Organization (WHO) unit, set up and headed by Donald Henderson. The last case in the Americas occurred in 1971 (Brazil), south-east Asia (Indonesia) in 1972, and on the Indian subcontinent in 1975 (Bangladesh). After two years of intensive searches, what proved to be the last endemic case anywhere in the world occurred in Somalia, in October 1977."
So, there is support in taking the viewpoint that when the effort was properly stepped up, it was licked in ten years.