Which sucks, I like my job.
I was one of those people this time last year. No one was feeling sorry then either.
Don't worry I'll get a booster shot when it is due, but I've done my part. Please don't lump me in with the unvaxxed.
EDIT: to be clear, i was just an innocent bystander who caught covid-19 early on while no one could possibly believe i was having the symptoms that we are all so deathly afraid of now. i survived, i have this persistent feeling of weirdness and random twinges of pains, but i survived it without a vaccine. i don't know what a vaccine is going to do for me (at this junction in time, maybe T+12 months will be different lets see what the science says)
We do know what a vaccine does, especially in the case of viral vectors(they’ve been around for decades). What specifically seems to be unknown?
The only critical aspect of this situation is that there are kids and people who can't get the vaccine. It would be great if we could protect them and people who work with kids/medical personnel should be obligated to get the vaccine with full reimbursement in case of side-effects. We should absolutely work to have healthier indoors climate through filtering, venting, etc. And I think we should all wear masks when e.g. going to the doctor or in public transport. But none of that will happen, we'll probably continue to spit on each-other and breathe stale air.
Not wanting to do something to help others is the definition of selfish, even if it's your right.
It's not that simple and a very important factor is what that something is. To give an extreme example, we don't call people that don't donate a kidney to help others selfish, even if the others may die without the kidney. We don't even call those that don't want to donate organs after death selfish.
The more accurate statement is therefore that those who get vaccinated (primarily) to help others are selfless. It's good for the rest of us that they exist, but we can't and should not make those that don't want to do this feel guilty, because there's like I mentioned nothing to be guilty of, given the current state of the pandemic.
It's probably a good idea to make it mandatory for medical professionals and people working with kids, as long as the government (or even better the vaccine manufacturer) takes responsibility for any and all side-effects. And if the pandemic changes course and vaccines stop working, putting us in an endless cycle of flare-ups and vaccinations - then it would be worth it to consider vaccination a duty for all people.
A better way to see vaccine mandates is that it will remove one of the fundamental checks and measures from capitalism that ensures the consumer get a quality product.
If a product become mandated, then the producer have a vastly less incentive to maintain the quality of the product. And this is the real danger.
The ability of a consumer to reject a product based on what they see, is the crux of our system of economy, and it cannot be removed or written off, no matter what.
But the companies would love to write it off, and point to authorities like CDC, and say, "Hey, look, you are still protected by these agencies", and the proceed to buy them off (or have them already on the pay roll), and in the end, consumer gets fucked.
I'm sorry if someone's decision not to get vaccinated costs them their job, but I have to protect myself and my family.
I'm a little confused by this. I live in King County, WA (and I work at Google). According to data reported by the county (as tabulated by the NY Times), one in 19 residents have contracted COVID[0]. That's >5% -- with a 1.8% case fatality rate in the US[1]. That's a bit below a one in 1000 chance of having died of COVID if you live in my county, including the infection fraction. If you look a the risk of just contracting it, based on the county, the risk is higher than any other disease I'm aware of.
Am I missing something?
[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/king-washington-...
Here is one of many risk calculators, based on UK data: https://qcovid.org/
Unknown factors for the unvaccinated are the severity of new strains (against which the vaccines may not work well though, see the CureVac trials) and long covid (which does exist but is not well studied yet). Unknown factors for the vaccinated are the potential of the spike protein to create havoc in your vascular system (yet a real infection gives you an uncontrollable large dose of it), and the related anecdata about rare severe vascular side effects.
Such unknowns have to be respected when making personal, political and employer decisions. Overconfidence easily slips into failure. People have issues with the related cognitive dissonances and prefer to take and rage defending sides.
Personally, I can't imagine the guilt if I knew I caused a close family member or friend to contract COVID, and have remained pretty cautious even after we have all been vaccinated.
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm
That looks like a scary number until you look at it by age, then it looks very different. If you were at risk of dying from flu before COVID then your odds got worse, everybody else's risk level is largely unchanged. Should employers mandate that healthy employees get experimental vaccines in order to improve the mortality rate among non-employees who were already at risk of being taken out by a cold? Seems pretty obvious to me, but this thing went well beyond reason a long time ago. Unless Google and Facebook have a bunch of 65+ stalking their halls, it is really hard pretending that this isn't either a political move or some weird power trip.
https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/dataviz8737/viz/COVID...
It’s clear that the older you get, the worse your immunity works. A vaccine isn’t 100% efficient in the first place and will work worse on a 70 yo than on a 30 yo. This means that in order to protect the vulnerable, the society has to achieve herd immunity.
Sadly, this is not the case. Vaccinated people achieve high viral loads too.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210729042140/https://www.washi...
heh, yeah - that'll work out great I'm sure. "You don't understand, officer! According to the published research..."
This reasoning is used to justify horrific acts. Is there no limit? Obviously your line in the sand is beyond compelled experimental vaccinations... what about throwing virgins into volcanos? That might actually be more productive, as it could be no less effective in combatting the virus - and it might actually sate the power mad doom cult and show the elderly how devoted young people are to them.
What exactly seems to be experimental, considering the published clinical trials? You’ve got to have a hypothesis, like “In 5 years mRNA-vaccinated subjects develop chronic explosive diarrhea because of X, Y, and Z.” Then you can go ahead and test the hypothesis, that’s how science works.
Gee, I dunno, maybe everything related to the FDA's emergency use authorization?
We’re talking about public health here, not just yours or mine. Something tells me we should have a bit of trust in people who studied epidemiology and vaccines all their lives. And the consensus in the scientific community is that herd immunity by vaccination is a way to go.
If people want to put others at risk of harm, employers are under no obligation to indulge them.
To be fair, it actually is different. The mechanism of action and the EUA timelines are different and unlike most other widely available vaccines. It is ok to disagree on the crux of the argument which is whether taking the vaccine is a net good, but non-factual arguments do not help.
And no I don't agree with your point about vaccines being "different for every contagion". That is patently untrue, most vaccines developed in the recent past have either been recombinant, attenuated/inactivated viruses or adenovirus vectored vaccines that have undergone extensive FDA approval by now.
This is especially true for the vaccines required for schooling.
If you list every other type of vaccine other than mRNA, then yes the majority of vaccines are one of those. I mean, you even listed adenovirus which is extremely new and only used in covid & ebola vaccines, which makes me suspect you don't actually care about the underlying technology or know much about it.
> This is especially true for the vaccines required for schooling.
The start of that movement was with the smallpox vaccine, which was quite a dangerous vaccine as far as vaccines go. Seems a weird comparison to make.
So you are agreeing with me that there is prior evidence that adenovirus vector vaccines are safe and efficacious? Because that is exactly what I am trying to say. If you feel that there isn't enough evidence, feel free to omit that from the list and the point still stands. Perhaps even more so for OP's point about school-mandated vaccines.
> The start of that movement was with the smallpox vaccine, which was quite a dangerous vaccine as far as vaccines go. Seems a weird comparison to make.
You completely lost me here. No one is making the claim that the covid vaccines are net bad nor that it will always be so. From what I understand the vaccine hesitant population includes medical professionals and many well informed people who are simply waiting for more evidence about its safety. The smallpox vaccine today is understood to be both safe and efficacious and has been approved by many advisory administrations including the FDA. So if you are trying to make the point that vaccines can initially start off being unsafe and further developments can make them safer over time, you are basically voicing the perspective of those who would rather wait it out than rush to take the vaccine.
I mean, the evidence isn't as strong as it is with mRNA vaccines, but nonetheless they are effective and reasonably safe.
I just think your division of categories is totally arbitrary and not grounded in any evidence.
> From what I understand the vaccine hesitant population includes medical professionals and many well informed people who are simply waiting for more evidence about its safety
You could describe the flat earth movement the same way. The world has a lot of people in it, the set of beliefs contained within run the gamuet. Some people think X is true for all X. I don't think that says much about the answer to the question one way or another.
You just agreed that adenoviruses are proven to be safe and effective at scale. I don't think anyone can argue conclusively that mRNA vaccines are, though there is mounting evidence that the incidence of short-time side effects is low. If you follow that rule, it should be obvious what rule the division of categories take and why they are grounded in evidence.
> You could describe the flat earth movement the same way.
Now that is a strawman if I've ever heard one, not sure if you actually intend to be taken seriously with that. There are provable ways to show that the earth is round based on physical laws. There is not enough evidence that the covid mRNA vaccine is safe and effective. One could argue about what would constitute evidence for safe and effective, but pick any reasonable metric (e.g. full FDA approval, long term studies). In fact, I would argue that to think that the COVID vaccines are completely safe without enough evidence to conclusively prove that falls under the kind of beliefs that you describe.
There are always going to be people who are non-rigorous and choose to believe what they want to but I hazard a guess that a large portion of the vaccine hesitant crowd falls under the category of people who want to see a rigorous analysis of the long term side effects of the vaccine before taking it.
Before you strawman this argument again by saying that you can apply this logic to anything, do some research about the history of mRNA vaccines and its associated risks (autoimmune disorders, myocardial inflammation, all the anecdotal reports of persistent side effects, etc.).
The point is not that mRNA vaccines produce these side effects with high probability but that there is high uncertainty as to whether they do or not because of the lack of long term studies.
I have trouble following your line of argument.
You think that adenovirus based vaccines are proven to be safe and effective at scale. You don't think that mRNA has. But covid was the first time adenovirus vaccines have been used at scale. They're probably a reasonable risk tradeoff for people during a pandemic, but they have rare side effect causing blood clots that are fatal if not immediately treated, so i wouldn't say they have the ideal safety profile.
I think it would be logically consistent (even if i disagreed) to say neither mRNA nor adenovirus had enough testing. It would also be consistent to say both are ok or even mrna is ok but adeno isn't. However it makes no sense to me to say, of two vaccine types that have had the same amount of testing, the one that has worse safety & efficacy is great, the one with the better safety results needs more testing.
Like, is their something i'm missing about your argument? What basis are you making this judgement on?
> Now that is a strawman if I've ever heard one,
How so? I'm pretty sure its not. A straw man is a specific type of invalid argument.
To recap, you said
> From what I understand the vaccine hesitant population includes medical professionals and many well informed people who are simply waiting for more evidence about its safety.
And i said (ad absurdum) that the same could be said of flat earth. Flat earth is nuts, so if your argument applies equally to them, it must be incorrect. Therefore that line of reasoning should be discarded.
> There are provable ways to show that the earth is round based on physical laws
Indeed that was my point: flat earth is nuts. If your argument could be used to support a patently false position than there is almost certainly a mistake in your logic
> Before you strawman this argument again by saying that you can apply this logic to anything
Again that's very literally the opposite of what a straw man argument is. Wikipedia has an article on the topic if you are curious.
> The smallpox vaccine today is understood to be both safe and efficacious
This is kind of besides the point. But no that's not true. The smallpox vaccine is understood to be high risk and is not reccomended for most people. Risk is cost vs reward, so it was a very different story in the 1800s.
My main argument here is not that its safe or not safe (even though i believe it is). I'm claiming that you're evaluating its safety irrationally and inconsistently (or perhaps without researching the underlying topic), and i guess more generally if you're not going to be consistent in your own evaluation you should just listen to experts.
In this case, you are misrepresenting the argument I'm trying to convey by comparing it to something that is proven without a shadow of a doubt (the earth is round). You misrepresented the initial claim as being a statement on the "proven safety (or lack thereof) of covid mRNA vaccines" whereas it was merely about the "uncertainty of the safety of covid mRNA vaccines".
Also to address your other leaky arguments.
> However it makes no sense to me to say, of two vaccine types that have had the same amount of testing
One of the vaccine types (hint: adenovirus vectored) has an instance that has approval for use by EMA. Now if you want to raise questions about the rigor of the EMA compared to that of the FDA and as a result their relative safety compared to the other vaccine types, you are free to do so. Like I mentioned, even if you want to omit that specific type of vaccine, my point still stands. It makes 0 difference to the argument I'm making. If you don't understand this basic point and are unable to progress beyond a single technicality, there is no use having a discussion because you don't get the point that is being made.
> Indeed that was my point: flat earth is nuts. If your argument could be used to support a patently false position than there is almost certainly a mistake in your logic
What is this patently false position you speak of? The only patently false argument I can think of is your insistence that there is enough evidence to conclude that the covid vaccines are conclusively safe over the long term.
You do not need any additional evidence to prove that the earth is not flat. You absolutely do need more evidence to conclude with high probability that the covid vaccines are safe long-term for the obvious fact that there has not been sufficient time since a large group has been vaccinated to know. Not to mention the various variants which the vaccines don't seem to be effective against.
> Again that's very literally the opposite of what a straw man argument is. Wikipedia has an article on the topic if you are curious.
You should definitely go read up on what a strawman argument is. I am not surprised that you use such arguments given that your understanding of them is incomplete. To clarify, I'm referring to the fact that based on your previous responses, I can guess that you are prone to misunderstanding what I am saying as "covid vaccines are especially prone to having horrendous side effects" as opposed to "there is uncertainty about its long-term safety, for good reason".
> I'm claiming that you're evaluating its safety irrationally and inconsistently (or perhaps without researching the underlying topic)
I clearly just outlined several reasons to be skeptical of mRNA vaccines. I have many friends who are immunologists and pharmaceutical scientists who know about the history of mRNA vaccines and their associated risks. If you have no clue about this, you're the pot calling the kettle black and you should do more reading instead of wasting my time. Your deference to "experts" in the public eye clearly supersedes your ability for critical thinking, making sound logical arguments and reading primary literature.
Ah, i see where the confusion came in. You don't know what misrepresent means.
Misrepresent means to say someone said X when they really said Y.
To compare something is to say, someone said X (when they really truly did), and I think that X is similar or equivalent to Y due to reason Z.
The key difference is I'm not saying the other person said Y, I'm saying that i think its equivalent. I'm not making claims about the other person's beliefs, i'm making claims about my own beliefs about what they said. An on looker can clearly distinguish what are my beliefs and what the original person's beliefs are, and judge for themselves. In a misrepresentation they can't honestly tell where the original person's belief end and the new person's beliefs start. See the difference?
> by comparing it to something that is proven without a shadow of a doubt
That is generally how argument ad absurdum works (well usually the negation of something proven beyond a shadow of a doubt). Which is very different from a strawman.
If the conclusion wasn't proven false beyond a shadow of a doubt, it would hardly be fitting to call it absurd
> You absolutely do need more evidence to conclude with high probability that the covid vaccines are safe long-term
Yes, i was dismissing your evidence as stupid (i.e. the existence of some unnamed person somewhere believing a proposition having any bearing on the truth of the proposition), not the need for evidence in general.
> What is this patently false position you speak of?
The absurd concludion that the earth is flat. (Its more clear in context)
> You should definitely go read up on what a strawman argument is
You just quoted it at me. I stand by my statement. A priori, "saying that you can apply this logic to anything" cannot be a strawman since there is no misrepresentation involved which is a neccesary condition for it to be a strawman, according to the definition you just quoted.
> I have many friends who are immunologists and pharmaceutical scientists who know about the history of mRNA vaccines...
Really now? Its basically a meme at this point to use a line like this when talking about race relations (e.g. "i'm not racist, i have black friends!"). I'm not sure why you think this would be anymore compelling in a different context.
> One of the vaccine types (hint: adenovirus vectored) has an instance that has approval for use by EMA
Which one? The covid adenovirus ones are emergency approval, which to be clear, is still an approval, but i thought the bar you had was approval without caveats. The ebola one also has caveats - "Zabdeno has been authorised under ‘exceptional circumstances’. This is because it has not been possible to obtain complete information about Zabdeno for scientific and ethical reasons." - https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/zabdeno
Is there an adenovirus based vaccine i don't know about that has full approval?
Re: "existence of some unnamed person somewhere believing a proposition having any bearing on the truth of the proposition"
You seem to be making things up now, if you make absurd claims, back it up with evidence. Where did I say such a thing? My point has always been about the amount of evidence, if you understood otherwise you misinterpreted what I said. At least now, you are starting to agree with my point about the need for evidence, so we are making some progress here.
> Really now? Its basically a meme at this point to use a line like this when talking about race relations
This is such a dumb thing to say with no relevance to the point at all. If you feel the need to resort to such analogies to strawman (yes, read what it means if you don't get the use of the term here and keep re-reading till you understand) my argument, it is clear you have nothing of substance to say. The reason I brought this up is not to virtue-signal as you seem to have misrepresented but rather to inform you about the sources I'm getting my information from. All of my friends who work in these fields agree with these risks and advise against getting the vaccine until there is more data unless its unavoidable.
Re: Zabdeno - The fact that it is an exceptional use authorization is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that it is approved and has been in use for over a year. That reduces the uncertainty about long-term effects. If you don't trust the rigor of the EMA and doubt that it is safe despite being in use for over a year, it is up to you to discount the evidence. Irrelevant to the point.
In any case, I have not heard anything convincing from your end as to why the people who are holding off of getting the vaccine because of the lack of long term safety data are wrong. And instead, it is increasingly clear that you have not done your research or thought about this matter deeply enough. I know it is not representative of all the people who are pro-vaccine so I would like to allocate my time hearing from those who have actually thought about this and have substantial things to say. Good day.
And i disagreed that making a comparison from one thing to another is a misrepresentation provided that one accurately describes the initial thing. As far as i can tell you haven't disputed my counterargument as to what the words misrepresent and comparison mean, as of yet. My evidence is the dictionary. > Re: "existence of some unnamed person somewhere believing a proposition having any bearing on the truth of the proposition" > You seem to be making things up now, if you make absurd claims, back it up with evidence. Where did I say such a thing?
I'm responding to "From what I understand the vaccine hesitant population includes medical professionals and many well informed people who are simply waiting for more evidence about its safety"
To be fair, you did qualify that with weasel words about medical professional & well informed people. They were unnamed though. I should have used the same qualification. I don't think changing it to be "existence of some unnamed medical professional or person somebody deems to be well informed somewhere believing a proposition having any bearing on the truth of the proposition" has any material impact on my argument.
> The fact that it is an exceptional use authorization is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that it is approved and has been in use for over a year. That reduces the uncertainty about long-term effects.
Look at those goal posts shift.
> I brought this up is not to virtue-signal as you seem to have misrepresented but rather to inform you about the sources I'm getting my information from.
Yes, indeed, that's why i compared it to the racism context, since that's how that argument is used in that context too - as an appeal to authority that cannot be assailed because the authority is hidden (or potentially made up) making it very difficult to criticize the authority. Maybe its a bit of an obnoxious comparison since its borderline ad hominem to compare to that subject matter. Nonetheless all the reasons that's an unreasonable argument in that context apply here too.
> In any case, I have not heard anything convincing from your end as to why the people who are holding off of getting the vaccine because of the lack of long term safety data are wrong.
Indeed, the primary point i was arguing is that your position is irrational and inconsistent. This has nothing to do with vaccines. I can't actually tell if you are pro or against it, since you seem to be pro adenovirus vaccines, and most covid vaccines other than moderna or pfizer are adenovirus based. Regardless, you'd be wrong if you were pro, you'd be wrong if you were anti, you'd be wrong if we were talking about what type of shoes to wear. The reasons you're wrong for the most part have nothing to do with the subject at hand.
1) necessary, because here is the data: ...
2) safe, because here is the data: ...
They create all kinds of funny web sites on any topic but not on this very important thing today. Just make a good web site and convince all the remaining skeptics with scientific arguments and data! Put it in one place, make it clear and fair.
When content is something that's monetizable, people of all kinds are going to use this chaotic opportunity to make a quick buck. The more attention grabbing the title the greater the likelihood people will click on the link.
So its entirely unsurprising that a corp marketing team within google or facebook would be entirely powerless in creating a repo that cuts through the noise. Certainly they could censor all information except their official statement, however people would be highly mistrustful of that and will take any change in narrative as a signal of incompetence.
This is far from the most dangerous vaccine ever to be required.
At least FB and Google have remote employment for the anti-vax crowd.
The aggregate risk of a poorly-vaccinated population is, presumably, still likely much higher than the "longitudinal risks" of vaccines?
ie., it seems unlikely to me that vaccines will kill 100,000s (and, with covid continuing, 10s,000s+/yr).
Even doing this based on individual preference alone, presumably you have preferences for the safety of (some) others; of your workplace; etc.
I agree with your assessment that major adverse effects are unlikely, but ultimately unknowns are impossible to quantify. I know the risk of COVID, I do not if I am being prescribed thalidomide.
The virus has little evolutionary pressure to be less lethal. COVID has already spread before the symptoms appear.
I'm hearing that for the first time, do you have a source?
> longitudinal risk
With longitudinal I meant the risk of what we have labelled 'long Covid' but really seems to be a conglomerate of different, sometimes chronic diseases in different people, that we still don't really know how to treat effectively (not very frequent in absolute terms, but orders of magnitude more frequent than any serious side effects we have observed due to the vaccines).
So if I understand you correctly, what you are fearing is that there is some unknown risk about the mRNA vaccine, that will only reveal itself over time, but that we have no idea about the mechanism of action nor any actual cases. Is that right?
> I'm hearing that for the first time, do you have a source?
A virus that kills its host before it has a chance to infect others cannot reproduce.
I cannot remember which virus it was (might have been ebola) but it wiped whole communities so fast it died off because there were no new hosts to infect.
I also want to remark that there is the opposite effect that transmissibility correlates strongly with viral load (amount of viral particles) and viral load correlates weakly with lethality.
Also, you can transmit covid and be asymptomatic.
Finally, death is not the only "bad" outcome of covid. About 1/10 people have "long covid", ie symptoms that persist over time (lack of smell or taste, fatigue..). And this affects young people too.
So, as others have said many times, this vaccine is not a matter of individual choice. This is an infectious disease, so by being infectious, you may harm others, even young people. This is why governments or companies are making it mandatory.
You do not know the u-u risk of covid for precisely the same reasons you do not know the u-u risk of the vaccine: they are both on the same timeline.
You also do not know the aggregate u-u risk to others: asymptomatic spread, modalities of spreading, etc.
The aggregate u-u compound the individual u-u of covid. Eg., suppose long-covid occurs at a higher rate than supposed, has a longer lasting impact, has a more severe neurological impact.... then this compounds the u-u risk on spreading (eg., suppose that asymptomatic spread is more severe...).
All you're saying by declining the vaccine is that you care more about the u-u risk to yourself.
which is fine, i think this is a valid position to take.
The invalid position is to prevent others from isolating you (who have this position) - for example, by mandating a vaccine passport for certain types of services or activities. You cannot take the position of wanting to protect yourself from u-u risk of vaccines, _and yet_ also continue consequence free life.
My issue is the conceptual mistake of ignoring the "unknown unknown" risks you impart on others when you accept one set of "unknown unknowns" yourself. It is a sort of hypocrisy that allows you to dodge the shame of a private decision.
In the end, when rejecting this vaccine, you have to fully own the "shameful aspect":
Taking the vaccine is an act many are taking on behalf of others, and in doing so, accept a private risk for a public good. We ought rightly praise this.
Rejecting the vaccine is a rejection of the priority of this public good which many ought regard as shameful.
Personally, were I so inclined to reject it, I'd simply say: "I do not care about society so much" -- and it would be true -- "shame me all you like, who cares". But the latent hypocrisy here and doublethink makes me believe many are unwilling to say this -- because they dont believe it -- and hence my issue.
Its not as simple as that. Most covid transmission occurs when the infecting person is asymptomatic. And approximately 30% of people who get covid have no significant symptoms at all.
You have a right to make decisions about your body and medical treatment. And, taken on its own, the decisions you make are very unlikely to make a significant difference to the outcomes for the society that you live in. But when large numbers of people decide, like you, to prioritise their own autonomy over the safety of their community, we end-up with a situation that is exploitable by the disease. The way to beat it is to act together. Sincerely, I'd urge you to consider this.
Your risk of getting Covid if not vaccinated (and leading a remotely normal lifestyle) is close to 100%. With an R0 of 6 you can't just free-ride of people who take the "unknown longitudinal risk", because even if a lot of people take the jab it's extremely unlikely we will achieve herd immunity any time soon -- even if the jabs (or prior infection) granted perfect and permanent immunity which they don't. I'm suprised you think otherwise, and would like to hear your reasoning, in quantitative terms if possible.
Other's just don't care, me for example. I lived in a heavily lockdown country and then said fuck it, travelled to somewhere with (near) 0 covid rules and went nightclubbing almost daily till I got it. Wasn't that bad for me. And my preference is to have it again than being coerced into putting something I don't want into my body.
If my employer makes that decision for me, then that is fucked up and I am quitting, or better yet, questioning the legality of it.
This is why folks are pointing out the public health aspect as opposed to a focus on individual health.
And the relevance of 16 months would be? At this point it's pretty much a given that covid will become endemic. Due to general idiocy we've missed our chance of eradication.
In the 16 months you cited Covid has become both more virulent and almost twice as infectious. We'd now need around 85% population immunity to stop it from spreading, and the best vaccines only have below 90% effectiveness against symptomatic infection, and less against asymptomatic it seems. And evolution likely still has more low hanging fruit to find to make a virus that only made the jump to humans very recently better adapted to its new host.
So even if OP only has a 20% chance of contracting Covid in any one year interval (and it's likely higher), over 10 years that's a 90% chance (and 99.5% over 25). I have no idea what OP's belief that they have a extremely low chance of contracting covid is based on (that's why I asked, but unsurprisingly received no answer).
But if they're worried about that, they should also be worried about stuff the virus might do in the long term.
Astrazeneca did cause blood clot in some people who ended up dead. Yes, it's a very tiny fraction but this goes against what people are claiming to be the perfect cure.
I personally believe people should have the choice to take the shot.
I do understand that it ought to be a choice, and it still is, even with these companies. It looks like they are carving out polices for exceptions because there are folks that are unable to get vaccinated. I would hope that being in a class of people who haven’t been rigorously tested (pregnant women) would qualify.
Beyond that, they aren’t requiring all employees to be vaccinated, but anyone who will be working from an office where they may put other employees at risk. The choice still belongs with the individual.
When you realize it's potentially already too late
And the effectiveness at preventing transmission drops by something like 10% every month after the vaccination. Maybe this is due to delta-variant increasing?
And after delta, there will be epsilon ... and so on. Whatever strains escape the immunity created by the vaccines will be what spread.
De facto, vaccinations will not stop the spread and will not stop mutations. But they do prevent serious disease and death.
Do you think you are consistent in your risk judgement across all parts of your life? E.g have you ever taken drugs? Illicit or prescription?
There's also a longitudinal risk of covid as well. Given that the future is unknown, why would you count that as a reason not to get vaccinated instead as opposed to a reason to get vaccinated? You should really basically be considering the longitudinal risk as neutral since you don't really have any information saying it's issue.
In countries that had lockdowns, children and young adults arguably suffered worse than any other group. For a ten year-old, that's 10% of their life "gone". Children, teens and young adults have foregone life milestones, missed opportunities and friendships. Instead they have been charged with a ridiculous anxiety about something that is harmless to them.
It is comparatively inconsequential for the elderly to isolate.
Opening everything up now, without a adequate vaccination rate, would just put them at a huge health risk. Right after the social impact they already had.
And the social impact, IMHO, affected everyone.
We have to reach a point where Covid becomes endemic and we, people, society, are good to love with it. We will reach this point quicker the faster we vaccinate everyone. I guess we can agree school closures are not so good thing, right?
Vaccination also protects other people by reducing the spread in the population. By not being vaccinated, you will increase the chances of other people being infected.
How do you factor the risk to others into your decision?
When we work, we give all sorts of autonomy up. That what work literally is, exchanging some autonomy for some money. Most obviously that means doing parts of the job you don't like (docs aint going to write themselves). Some places it means wearing a tie (eww). My last job made me sign a document saying i agree never to bring a firearm to work.
All these things hinder my autonomy. Some may be more aceptable than others (eww dress code. Not interested in wearing a tie. But also wouldn't want to work at a nudist workplace either). In any case, almost every workplace has policies that prevent you from doing things that threaten the safety of other employees or their families. This is hardly much different.