I know very little about the pharmaceutical underpinnings of mRNA vaccines and how theoretically likely adverse long-term results are, but I do think caution by laymen is not unwarranted for a new type of vaccine that has been fast-tracked through trials (albeit for good reason!)
- Yes, you can avoid covid and potential long effects of vaccine by living in a cave for the next 10 years.
- You can "gamble" on a 0.01% chance of getting any long-term effects from the vaccine in exchange of getting 90% safe from covid.
I take this "gamble" every year with a flu shot, because to me it sounds safer than getting flu followed by pneumonia.
If everybody waits for the other 99% of people to get vaccined before them, so we can a free-ride on the herd immunity, we would never reach herd immunity.
I don't know of any drug that is 100% safe. Heck, even a tampon could send you to the grave. For this kind of vaccinations, we should have a margin of confidence that, being similar to other vaccines in composition but just changing the viral load, long term effects should be similar. The Moderna vaccine is a different animal.