Sorry, but I believed had researchers been allowed the time they needed to develop the Covid vaccine that we would not be seeing these side effects being linked to the vaccine today. If proper research had been carried out , the scientists would be able to correctly affirm or deny the side effects. It’s not the scientists fault. They were pushed to get the vaccine to the public.
There are always a few people who have bad reactions to vaccines, whether that be an allergic reaction to an ingredient or whatever.
Statistically, those adverse reactions are *VERY few* as a percentage of people receiving the vaccine, not to mention very few as compared to the people who have adverse reactions to *the disease the vaccine is intended to prevent or reduce*.
Then there are people who have something adverse happen shortly after receiving a vaccine and who mistakenly assume correlation = causation. Nearly all of those reactions were actually unrelated to the vaccine. Some were things that were going to happen to that person anyway. Others were reactions to an unrecognized illness (especially the case with COVID where 40% of infections are asymptomatic so folks don't even know they are sick).
What was different with COVID was two things. First, we now have this worldwide instantaneous communication platform where rumors and conspiracy theories (as well as truths) can be so easily spread to millions upon millions of people.
And second, we currently have an anti-science, divisive and finger-pointing culture where people who don't fully understand medicine or statistics, and who have been encouraged not to trust actual experts but to "do their own research" (which in the scientific meaning of that word isn't actually possible for a single individual not specifically trained) are fostering their fears online and reaffirming each other's mistaken perspectives.
So people who have anything adverse happen and who believe it might have come from the vaccine, go online and report their anecdote as if it was statistically significant, and nothing prevents millions of others from reading and mistakenly believing it.
And here's the thing -- if a person believes the development was rushed and therefore problematic, and avoided the vaccines for that reason, why does that person not believe now, six years later, that full and proper research has been completed? The vaccines have been updated every year and research into improving them is 100% ongoing, so by now wouldn't any supposed problems due to the early time pressure have been fixed?
MOO
I will continue getting two COVID vaxxes per year (three or four if I were able since immunity wanes after 3-4 months), unless and until a longer-lasting vaccine is developed. No more inconvenient than getting an annual flu shot, and WAY less inconvenient than doing my shopping right when the store opens and continuing to mask when indoors with others for more than a few minutes, all of which I also continue to do with very few exceptions.
