Quote:
Originally Posted by LiverpoolWalrus
Hi Coffee, with all due respect, in my opinion:
I'm trying to come up with an analogy about choosing not to walk headlong into a situation that can kill you. OBB's "Russian Roulette" is the closest to that mark. Maybe someone can come up with something.
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I left out most of your posts just for brevity.
I can't entirely agree with the basis of your post. I respect that you believe what you posted; I disagree with it.
You state numerous times that taking the vaccine could result in death.
That is true.
You state it is a new vaccine, and the long-term results are unknown.
That is sort of true, but also some false.
The "art" (or science) of making vaccines is not new. Most of these vaccines are not new. With some of them, there is a new twist, but it is based on the knowledge of other vaccines that are not new. The odds of them killing you are much lower than your dying while taking a shower - one of the deadliest places in your home. A lot of testing has demonstrated that safety and testing continue as hundreds of millions of doses are administered worldwide. All indications are it is very safe.
There is an enormous list of other activities that are much more likely to kill you than vaccination. And yet, most of us do those things every day. And we do them because we are used to doing them.
Sometimes the best thing we can do is take the advice of our primary care physicians. That is what I do when it comes to health issues. Not because she is an expert on pandemics or viruses, but because she knows me, knows my health conditions, and is paid (in my case by the VA) to do the best she can to give me the advice to keep me healthy.
She is not interested in politics; she is not interested in getting a bonus for selling more vaccinations; she is not interested in the latest news broadcast about something a podiatrist has to say about vaccinations.
She reads and studies the medical journals, she reads and applies the latest guidelines published by the VA, and she talks to me about what and why she wants me to do things.
When the vaccine became available, I asked her if I could defer getting mine until people who needed it more got theirs. She said, NO. She said she wanted me in the first wave of vaccinations at the VA in Gainesville and explained why. That was that. I got mine as instructed by my PCP.
I was a consultant in the IT industry for 35 years. I was considered an expert, and people paid significant rates to get my opinion on things they wanted to do to their IT infrastructure. It never amazed me how some mid-level manager always wanted to argue about how he thought the changes should be done. He knew best. And almost without fail, if the company followed his advice, they called me back the next year and paid me more since I had to clean up his mess/mistakes.
My point is, experts are not always right. I was not always correct. But, the odds are in the expert's favor. And that is all you can hope for - that you pad the odds in your favor — social distancing, washing hands, masks, and vaccinations. None of them are perfect; none of them guarantee you won't get the virus - they each add to the odds in your favor.