Just a comment on vaccines from someone who’s had a bit of exposure to severe COVID over the last 2 years.
I work directly with COVID patients in ICU and other areas of one of the major Victorian COVID hospitals. From an at the coal face perspective I have seen the effectiveness of the vaccine program. There are very few fully vaccinated people who end up in hospital with COVID and even fewer who end up getting proper sick in ICU. All of the sickest people I’ve been involved with have all been unvaccinated (and almost all chose not to be vaccinated). Those who have been vaccinated and do contract are far less likely to get severe disease and to pass it on (well to the alpha/delta variants at least). They are also far less likely to develop the long COVID syndrome.
With respect to evidence there are a number of peer reviewed articles available from reputable sources like the NEJM/Lancet which report the results of ongoing RCTs/clinical trials which show the vaccines are effective and safe in the short term (and I consider the 1:3 000 000 chance of dying from a rare blood clotting disorder barely worth mentioning, given the background rate of death from car accidents is around 2-3:100000 - the media has a lot to answer for for this one). These articles appear when you search via your usual search engine
I’ll concede we don’t know the long term safety data, but I’m willing to take the risk, given the burden that the long COVID syndrome is having on people.
I’ll continue to trust the experts I work with on the vaccines and public health measures, just as they trust me to look after their relatives when they are critically ill. I’ll also take notice of what is published in reputable medical journals. I try and avoid opinions, as they mostly come from people with an axe to grind, who wouldn’t know the first thing about critically appraising a robust piece of evidence so choose to do their research on Facebook.
JD