> Why is that worse than the risk of potentially (without knowing any probabilities obviously) developing autoimmune conditions as a result of taking the vaccine?
Well, in the 20,000 dosages in the pfizer vaccines, I believe there was no autoimmune conditions found. I think Moderna was the same. If that's your concern, maybe steer clear of the AstraZeneca/ChAdOx1 vaccine.
There are two main components to the vaccine, the RNA itself, and the proteins it causes the cell to make. Both naturally break down and are removed from the body very quickly--in hours to days from my understanding, so one could use that to conjecture that longer term effects are perhaps less likely in this case and something like that would show up sooner.
We're not really comparing flu stats vs. covid stats. I'd argue these things are not good whether they come from a severe flu or covid, so that seems like a red herring? Here our choice is "what is more likely to mess me up badly, a vaccine designed, tested and peer reviewed with a do-no-harm mindset, or the virus behind a pandemic that has killed more than a million people worldwide."