I was thinking if we go all in on this stay-in-place and we get it working around the world, could we eliminate measles? Chicken pox? Any other human-virus disease that relies on human-to-human contact to spread?
You're thinking of Solaria[1], from Isaac Asimov's Robot series. It's not a great society, all things considered.
We already have measles and chicken pox pretty well licked with vaccines. Smallpox was eliminated in the wild, polio is nearly there. There's no need to change our entire way of life permanently just for diseases we can easily vaccinate against.
In theory yes, but in practical terms probably not, as it is unlikely that we get the whole humanity in a lockdown and of course there are still human-human contacts. This is the reason, it is unlikely that we get rid of sars-cov-2 entirely once the global spread was beyond a certain threashold.
But in practical terms one could espect a lot of infectious diseases to be drastically reduced in case numbers.
Unfortunately, I think a more significant cause of the continued existence of these diseases is failure to vaccinate, either by choice (anti-vax) or due to circumstance (cost of vaccination, access to health care, etc).
There are several diseases that society could eradicate that we simply choose not to.
Even wealthy tech people are affected by this; I was just told my very good insurance doesn't cover a vaccine that my doctor prescribed. It would cost $400, so I need to weigh my actual risk of getting the disease against cost of vaccination. I'd think the long-term return on investment for society would justify making just about every vaccine free to all.
edit: consider how much easier it is to just get a few shots, compared to never going to a bar, restaurant, sporting event, public transit or shared workspace ever again. Going all-in on social isolation is a nonstarter, even discounting the people who won't comply (there are many) or the toxic political environment that has pitted half the US against science and expertise.
Not sure why you got down voted, I can only agree.
Social distancing only slows distribution it doesn't prevent it reliably also some disease are spread by animals which are not at all affected by social distancing.
And then vaccines are also not enough as it had shown for some disease where we did try to eliminate them by handing out free vaccines in affected countries.
Lastly social distancing has a super high cost if continued. Not only economically but a super high health cost. Humans are not meant to live permanently social distanced they are inherently social animals and the internet can't really replace it. E.g. for people fighting depression social distancing can be like poison. It prevents them or at least restrict them from doing many the thinks which can help fighting depression and causes "physical" isolation (Internet is helping but has limits, it's not helping enough to counter it). Another group most likely majorly negatively affected are people with "home" problems, like violent partners or parents (or just to controlling partners or parents). To just name some example.
