How do you weigh that against the long tail of a COVID infection having long term effects? We already have evidence of that, and zero evidence of that with the vaccine.
You would weight them based on individual risk factors.
If you have a risk of autoimmune disorders because of genes or other factors you would weight it against other factors.
Maybe you have left the house 4 times in the last year and you have an autoimmune worries perhaps avoiding the vaccine makes sense. Your risk rises wheb even going to the place to get the vaccine.
Everyone wants one piece of advice to fit everyone. Everyone is different.
If you get the vaccine and go out three times to every one time an unvaccinated person goes out you both have the same risk profile. If you go out 4 times you are more likely to catch it.
If you really want to stop this, stay at home unless you must go out. The vaccine adds 3x the protection.. not 10x or 100x
I don’t think there’s a great answer to your question.
One has to weigh the guaranteed exposure to risks of the vaccine, which currently appear to be extremely low but not zero, versus the less certain exposure to the demonstrably greater short term and long-term risks of a covid infection.
Ultimately that wasn’t my point, my main point is that transparency and humility in communication will likely create less of a backlash than what we are seeing today.
In breakthrough cases where the individual has a high viral load and typical COVID symptoms (shortness of breath, fatigue, etc.) it's not unreasonable to assume that the person might suffer from the same course of illness as an unvaccinated person. While the vaccines clearly reduce the incidence of hospitalization and death, there are people whose breakthrough cases aren't exactly what the average person would call "mild".
