Comment by ericmay

Let's start with this question:

> For instance what do you think the chances of a healthy 20 year old male with 0 comorbidities of dying from COVID are?

Much more likely than dying from the vaccine.

Also, and this is very important, at the time the vaccine was developed and released to the general public it was even more unknown what the fatality truly would be. We weren't totally sure as a species how the virus might mutate... maybe it would become more deadly? Maybe it would kill young people specifically even if they were otherwise healthy? Maybe by not getting the vaccine with less risk to you as the healthy 20 year old means you get COVID-19 and get "long COVID" (which I'm not sure is a real thing anyway, but I digress) and sure you didn't die but now your life sucks some.

The problem with "the other side"'s line of reasoning is that there was a specific concern with "risk" of the COVID-19 vaccine that didn't translate into practical reality and wasn't being assessed relative to the broader risk of getting COVID-19 itself or other general risks we undertake everyday.

Another way you can slice this up is, well, there's no risk of getting the vaccine, but getting sick sucks so even one day of being sick is well worth getting a shot for just to not get sick. "What about the risk" there's no real risk. If you think there's a risk, the risk is higher for getting COVID or whatever.

It all comes back to this perceived risk of COVID-19 vaccines (thank you to China, Russia, Iran, etc.) and improper assessment of risk.

Relative to getting COVID-19 there was no risk. Relative to the dumb risks people take everyday it is even less risky. The only difference is people are sitting around reading about it on social media and being stupid.