This is a really good article that somewhat mirrors my experience and gleaning of information since the pandemic started.
From THE DEFENDER
Cory Zue, an “MIT-educated, well-meaning, rational (hopefully), Massachusetts-born, Democrat who works in public health” explains why he didn’t get the COVID vaccine, and why it isn’t okay to live in a world in which medical procedures can be forced on people without an impenetrable foundation of evidence to support them.
You might be wondering, well why not just get the shot?
And of course, of course, it would be great to be among the privileged vaccinated class right now. I do not like being forced to take a COVID test to step into my son’s school (even though my natural immunity is better than some of the vaccinated people and their 13% J&J efficacy). I do not like having my holiday plans canceled at the last minute. I do not like not being able to visit my wife’s home country.
And it’s not that I’m scared, or that I think something bad will happen to me if I get the vaccine. I believe the vaccines are safe enough. As I mentioned, the evidence suggests that my risk from the vaccine is less than the risk I accepted for my first bout of COVID, which I also wasn’t scared of.
At the same time, I do genuinely believe that given my previous infection the risk/benefit of the vaccine is negative. That is — I think it is more likely to do harm than good. And I believe that any good it will do is temporary and futile in the long term.
The overwhelmingly likely outcome is that the vaccine would do just what the virus did: maybe inconvenience me for a day or so, and then I’d be on with my life. Rationally, isn’t that worth being able to live “normally” again?
Yes. That would be worth it. But the issue is no longer the vaccine. The problem is the precedent.
I don’t believe it’s ok to live in a world in which medical procedures can be forced onto people without an impenetrable foundation of evidence to support them. And I’m just not seeing that from where I stand.
The world I want to live in is a world where we make and enforce rational, evidence-based policies based on the good of the population. A world in which we defer some autonomy to individuals to make their own decisions regarding their health and don’t keep them from going out to dinner or getting on an airplane if we disagree with them.
I’d also like to live in a world where we stop shaming “the other,” and I’ve decided that one way I can do that is by declaring myself as part of “the other.”
