[auggierose]

Young people are actually right then in never ever taking any vaccine recommended by public policy ever again. If taking a vaccine is against your personal interest, and nevertheless public policy, that is the consequence.

It is one thing to make a judgement error in the heat of a crisis, it is quite another one to deny afterwards what a huge fuckup it has been.

[greycol]

There was only one category that it made sense to refuse the covid mrna vaccine in hindsight (excluding specific medical conditions), that was if you were over 10 and under 25 AND gave yourself greater than ~1,000 to 1 odds of not catching covid. That's based on the fact that the chance of a young healthy individual having a severe negative outcome from the vaccine was that much less likely than a sever negative reaction from catching covid. So yes in a vacuum you can say that having the mrna covid vaccine when you don't need it is a negative but "don't need' is specifically if you have low odds of catching the disease not low odds of having a bad outcome from the disease. I'd say a preeminently foolish bet by the time the vaccine was actually available.

I suppose you could also argue other categories based on higher or lower ages and who gave themselves lower chances of ever catching covid could technically also fall into that group. You could also argue moral reasons not to get the vaccine but I'd say in any situation where you still expected to get healthcare that detracted from the healthcare of others (i.e when the hospitals were at capacity and your treatment could kill another) would be morally bankrupt.

[auggierose]

> I'd say a preeminently foolish bet by the time the vaccine was actually available.

A preeminently foolish bet is to use a vaccine where you don't know anything about medium or longterm effects, for something that doesn't really affect you. If you know anything about science, you know that.