Society before vaccines didn’t have lockdowns all the time, the mortality was higher because you died of disease now almost forgotten. During epidemics a lot of things still had to get done, the corpses didn’t remove themselves, people still needed food, water and their shit carried off.
I’m not sure many people against vaccines these days have met anyone who got the diseases everyone is vaccinated for nowadays. Polio as a child? You survived? Great, you’ll have a limp and bad joints your whole life…