Please cite the lengthy list of institutions that have failed us all.

I think it's easier to support this concern the older you get. Here's why: as you age, you begin to see documentaries on TV and YouTube that expose widespread government coverup and misinformation operations from the past, (and this is crucial) about episodes through which you lived. The obvious example for me is the nuclear industry. A concrete example: in the 1970s we were told that nuclear power plants were entirely safe because a) they have control rods to stop fission and b) they're safely contained. As an engineering student I would have happily told friends and family these things as received facts. In reality a) post-scram the reactor carries on dissipating megawatts so it will easily melt and b) all sorts of gas and liquid under pressure needs to be vented from the containment system and c) some of those gasses are explosive, so it isn't able to contain. Fukushima nicely illustrated these factors. Iterate this a few times and you end up with this uneasy feeling that nothing you're told with authority can be relied upon. Having gone through the experience of believing something then discovering it was a lie feels different than someone just telling you that governments and authority figures lie.

Not saying here that one should avoid the vaccine, just that experience shows that a healthy skepticism is warranted. Do your own research and draw your own conclusions.

I can remember a time where government surveillance alarmists were dismissed as conspiracy theorists wearing tinfoil hats. Then Snowden released the documents and not only was it true, wide spread surveillance, but it was much deeper than any civilian could have imagined.

UFOs - again, dismissive, denied for decades. And now they've casually released videos from the Navy showing aerial vehicles performing maneuvers that none of our current technology is capable of.

The virus will never be gone.

> until the virus is gone

Gotta go kill all those animal carriers and test/innoculate every person in the world (more or less) continuously for some time, then you have a chance. The specific virus will not be eradicated within our grandchildren's lifetime, afaik.

>"I might even go so far as to say that this face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine, because it may be 70%. And if I don't get an immune response, the vaccine is not going to protect me,"

This is from September before the results of the vaccines were known. The two vaccines we have data on have a ~95% protection rate from getting symptomatic COVID. Additionally, of that 5% of vaccinated folks who did get symptomatic COVID, there cases appear to be much less severe than the control group.