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Originally Posted by haertig

Are you in favor of forcing everyone who is medically able to take this vaccine to do so (and while you're at it, every other vaccine out there as well)?

We are not talking about a small handful of people. It appears that about 1/3 of the population of the USA is hesitant to take the vaccine. I assume numbers are relatively similar in other free countries. Regardless of how you or I view the success of the vaccine(s), there are a bunch of people who do not agree with us. So even if you wanted to force these people to take a vaccine against their will, how would you accomplish that?

An interesting assumption that the vaccination hesitancy in the USA is going to be matched elsewhere. Current numbers in Canada put vaccine hesittancy in the 20% range. As more people get vaccinated, the non-fanatic "I'm not going to get vaccinated" crowd seems to be shrinking.

Originally Posted by haertig

I would also have to admit to myself that the risk the unvaccinated would present to the vaccinated, while not zero, is very very small. Making it even tougher to force anything on them.

Yes, it would be a shame to have that 5-10% of the vaccinated who may still be susceptible to Covid-19 or a variant to not have the opportunity to be infected by a non-vaccinated person who has Covid-19.

Originally Posted by haertig

I would even have to admit, that the risk the unvaccinated present to the vaccinated is much smaller than the risk associated with the vaccination itself. Right now, things look good for the vaccines. They seem safe. And effective. But truthfully, we do not yet have a good handle on long term effects. Vaccine hesitancy is not a trait of the stupid, rather, it is a trait of the cautious (some of the super conspiracy theorists indeed appear stupid, but they are in the minority). I cannot fault them for being cautious, even though I myself chose less caution and got the vaccine.

You would have to admit? If you can bring yourself to run the numbers, the risk for a vaccinated person being infected by a non-vaccinated person who has Covid-19 is quite a bit higher than the risk associated with the vaccines. The two vaccines with the highest risk of adverse side effects seem to be the Astra-Zeneca and Johnson & Johnson where the chance of blood clots is in the 1 in 100,000 range. Perhaps you can supply us the numbers on the number of deaths associated with the Pfizer BioNTech or Moderna vaccines? The last numbers I've seen were 4647 deaths in the 273 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines administered in the US from Dec. 20, 2030 to May 17, 2021.

Hmmm.... the number of deaths in the USA more or less to date from Covid-19 was 590,000 or about 0.18% of the population. I've attached a quote about the number of deaths in the 273 million doses of administered Covid-19 vaccines below runs about 0.0017% (a factor of close to 100:1):

Over 273 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the United States from December 14, 2020, through May 17, 2021. During this time, VAERS received 4,647 reports of death (0.0017%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine. CDC and FDA physicians review each case report of death as soon as notified and CDC requests medical records to further assess reports. A review of available clinical information, including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records has not established a causal link to COVID-19 vaccines.

And yes, I have read quite a bit of the crap spewed by the anti-vaccination crowd. Most of which seems to be endless regurgitation of the "we don't know the long term effects yet but we know that they will be very, very bad" at the best. At the worst, the stupidest type of pseudo-science, quoting from "authority", etc. And then we have those who are approaching the lunatic fringe from the far side.