I understand people being concerned about vaccine safety. The story that it usually takes years to get approval that has happened in weeks does suggest the question as to why, if it is completely safe, it isn't usually done a bit more quickly.
I'm not worried enough about the vaccine myself to refuse it because I don't expect anything to be 100% risk-free, and because it still seems likely that the risk (which is probably not as well quantified as would be the case with a longer testing phase) is very low and acceptable.
More importantly, what we do know with reasonable certainty of the risk from COVID to the individual, and to society, is that it is significantly greater without the vaccine.
I've just been listening to this chap on the radio. He has survived COVID but has ruined kidneys and amputations to deal with.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55332206
He has been terribly unlucky, and the vast majority infected will not suffer anything like these consequences, but there are plenty of cases of possibly permanent effects on the respiratory and cardiovascular system, and deaths on a scale of 10^4 so far - does anyone really think that the vaccine could be anywhere near as dangerous as that?
Humans aren't evolved to make probability judgements like this qualitatively. If they were, none of them would buy a lottery ticket in the hope of winning the jackpot or worry unduly about vaccination. Anaphylaxis (for example) caused by vaccine is around a 1 in 1 million risk so probably at least 10 times more likely than a jackpot win with one ticket. Still very unlikely.
The case is less clear for vaccinating young children, whose mortality risk from COVID is also around 1 in 1 million, about the same as a severe adverse vaccine reaction. For that and other reasons there are as I understand it no plans yet to vaccinate under-16's.
I'm not actually very worried about catching COVID myself, any more than I was about the risks of having an angiogram (risk of serious complications somewhere between 1:100 and 1:1000). But I'm not worried about the vaccine either, and I think the right course is to have it. Vaccines have done pretty well for me so far.
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