The ones with a nearly impeccable safety record, that we had many years of long term experience with, the ones that actually provided sterilizing immunity? Those are great!
The current vaccines have an impeccable safety record.
> that we had many years of long term experience with
We had many years surviving just fine with long term exposure to lead, cigarettes and asbestos. Time duration is not relevant, also because we have not had many years of long term experience with Covid itself - which is why the relative risk is what is important. You have an incredibly lower long-term risk when compared with catching Covid, and society has a multiplicatively lower risk when compared with unvaccinated people being allowed to so easily spread the disease.
> the ones that actually provided sterilizing immunity
The current vaccines provide significantly better immunity than the flu shot. This isn't a black and white exercise.
"Impeccable" does not appear to be accurate:
Orange County woman's death after 2nd dose of Moderna vaccine spurs concern from family https://abc7.com/moderna-vaccine-covid-side-effects-orange-c...
CDC says 28 blood clot cases, 3 deaths may be linked to J&J Covid vaccine https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/12/cdc-says-28-blood-clot-cases...
Belgium halts J&J COVID vaccine for under 41s after first EU death https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...
COVID-19: Vaccine recipient died of heart attack, CECC says https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2021/06/13/...
Woman who died a day after Covid-19 jab had heart attack, wasn't allergic to vaccine: MOH https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/woman-who-died-a-day-...
'I blame myself for vaccinating wife' https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-newdelh...
13-Year-Old Dies in Sleep After Receiving Pfizer COVID Vaccine; CDC Investigating https://www.newsweek.com/13-year-old-dies-sleep-after-receiv...
Two die in Japan after shots from suspended Moderna vaccines - Japan govt https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...
Young people's deaths after Pfizer vaccines are new worry https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2021/08/24/national/soc...
New Zealand reports first death linked to Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/new-zealand-repor...
Healthy mother-of-two, 35, dies after AstraZeneca vaccine caused blood clots on her brain as relatives say she had jab to 'protect her family' https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9986391/Mother-dies...
Vaccinated in secret from his parents: new details about the boy who died after the Pfizer injection https://incident-obozrevatel-com.translate.goog/crime/rodnyi...
Slovenia suspends Johnson vaccine over death of 20-year-old https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/29/slovenia-suspends-j...
Washington woman died from rare blood clotting syndrome after receiving Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine, local health agency says https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/05/health/washington-blood-clot-...
Twitter Labeled Woman's Obituary as 'Misleading' After Death From Rare Vaccine Complication https://www.newsweek.com/twitter-labeled-womans-obituary-mis...
Myocarditis-induced Sudden Death after BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination in Korea: Case Report Focusing on Histopathological Findings https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34664804/
Michigan woman’s death caused by rare Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine side effect, autopsy report says https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2021/10/saline-womans-...
Army conscript dies after jab https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2205891/army-co...
Probe underway into teenager's death after vaccination http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20211030000071
Covid: Blood clot victim's family praised for vaccine support https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-59224594
The follow up was saying "the covid vaccine doesn't have a perfect safety record therefore it's not really impeccable is it!" while not comparing to other safe vaccines at all.
You can't use a broad definition in the original claim and then try and use a narrow definition when refuting counter claims.
They absolutely are not "as safe", not by a long shot. The Myocarditis risk is unprecedented, as is the risk for GBS, as is the risk for VITT, which is a disease that didn't even exist before. Those are just the side-effects we acknowledge.
Beyond that, the sheer number of adverse event reports for the COVID vaccines dwarf the reports for all other vaccines combined. You can argue that surely most of those reports must be unrelated to vaccination, but that is true for all reports.
Now, before you move the goal post, I'm not saying that these risks outweigh the benefits. That becomes highly subjective and speculative as we move into the younger age brackets. In its approval papers, the FDA itself calculated scenarios in which the risk of vaccination outweighs the benefit for males under 18, we just choose not to pay attention to that.
Here in Australia we held back from giving certain vaccines (the mRNA vaccines we have available here) to some demographics when the virus was suppressed here, until the risk from a new outbreak meant it was safer to get the vaccine than not. The adenovirus vaccine we have available was not held back in the same way.
The contention in this discussion, I think, is that we haven't established an absolute yardstick for an 'impeccable safety record'.
You rightly point out the adverse effects we're seeing from these new vaccines, and that they appear more frequent than adverse effects from past vaccines, but that doesn't make them significantly less safe.
Suppose we have an old vaccine that has adverse effects 1% of the time (this would be terrible, but still), and a new vaccine that has twice as many adverse effects. The old vaccine would be 99% safe and the new vaccine 98% safe - quite similar (though still terrible)!
When we start talking about the actual rate of excess adverse effects for the covid vaccines it's on the order of 10 per million doses [0]. Even if this is 10 times worse than old vaccines we're talking about vaccines that are 99.9999% safe vs 99.999% safe.
Based on the evidence we have these vaccines are extremely safe, and I would feel comfortable accepting the 'impeccable safety record' label even though I probably wouldn't choose it myself.
[0] https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2021...
You can't know that. COVID is a new ilness, coronavirus vaccines are novel and neither MRNA nor adenovectors have long-term safety data. You can reduce your short-term risk from COVID by getting a vaccine, so far so good. You can't know if you then go on to develop an overly specific immune response that will end up hurting you with the next mutation. Perhaps the kind of mutation that is being selected for by a non-sterilizing vaccine administered to a large population? Can we rule that one out? Of course not, it's just too inconvenient to think about.
Too many people act as if this vaccine deal was a no-brainer, that the vaccine hesitant are just stupid. Never mind that the idea of vaccinating people not at risk, especially children, was almost unthinkable when it was the "Trump vaccine". What changed? Is it the science, or is it the population that demands a magic injection to end the pandemic by next Tuesday?
> ...and society has a multiplicatively lower risk when compared with unvaccinated people being allowed to so easily spread the disease.
This doesn't stand scrutiny, as some of the highest vaccinated places also have some of the highest rates of infection.
You can now get a vaccine that has gone through exactly the same review process as every other vaccine in US history (i.e., one that is not under EUA).
Without issues? That's quite a stretch. I would agree that the risk of a severe or even fatal reaction to the vaccine is quite low, but it's still massively higher than for any of the other vaccines.
> You can now get a vaccine that has gone through exactly the same review process as every other vaccine in US history
I can't speak to the validity of this claim, but it's neither here nor there. Approval for vaccines and other medication has been withdrawn before. No vaccine has ever been widely administered or even mandated without several years of safety data.