Steve James wrote: Otoh, if the vaccine works, "it can't be worse than the disease it prevents."
Even IF it were the case that the new Western-approved vaccines were to cause longer-lasting health damage to (I’ll just pluck a number from the air, amateurishly) 1 in 10,000 people and were to kill 1 in 50,000 people, then that would still be a much better public health outcome than the effects of the virus itself. All the more so when you consider that without vaccines, the virus will continue working its way through the entire population and will infect everyone sooner or later (unless you keep isolating/distancing/mask-wearing etc. for years, God forbid). ALSO considering that many people may well be open to infection a second or even third time, a year or two down the road.
-- I’d guess that any actual vaxx-damage figures will prove to be less than these imaginary numbers, but of course I don’t know.
I think one stumbling block is that for some people, the idea of suffering from vaccination damage seems worse than the idea of suffering from the effects of the virus itself. Some might feel that their own immune system will deal with the virus anyway; and they could be right. Although there are plenty of cases of relatively younger and physically fit people falling (very) ill from COVID-19 and suffering long-lasting problems, so I don’t think complacency is wise. But I think in essence it’s more psychological, in the sense that for some people the idea of suffering harm from a concrete event – in which you willingly participate and where someone else (‘them’, ‘the government’, ‘the system’) ‘does something to you’ – is regarded as more frightening, more terrible than suffering harm from a circulating virus. Even if the probability and level of harm from the virus is (much) greater than from a Covid vaccine. On a gut level I can sort of empathize with this viewpoint, even though I think it’s quite irrational, I don't share it and I won’t let myself be guided by any feelings like this.