> Here's the calculus.
When a needle goes into your arm, you know, with a one hundred percent certainty, that you are subjecting yourself to a tiny risk that something will go wrong. You don't know how your body will respond to the vaccine, nor can you know how protective it is going to be in a couple of months. You know that the risk, to the best of our current knowledge (which tends to change bewilderingly fast), is tiny. Yet, there is no denying that it exists. And you know, know with an absolute certainty, that your body is getting exposed to the vaccine. How much this thought scares you, if at all, is a part of the instrument known as informed consent.
What you also know is that if your body gets exposed to the actual virus, there is a much greater chance that something will go very wrong. What you cannot know is whether you will have that encounter with the virus. You also do not know whether you have already been exposed to it and have had it asymptomatically (in theory, it is technically possible to test your immune system, but in practice, no-one is going to do it outside of a clinical trial).

A tiny risk of what? What is the likelihood of the risk and what is the risk?

Go do some homework if you're going to say taking a vaccine is risky. Show me the numbers. Show me the science.

> Pre-2019, we did not mandate that people around us get vaccinated against flu, although we know that flu can result in a lethal pneumonia. Nor did we require people around us to be vaccinated against chickenpox, meningococcus, tuberculosis, etc. Each of those infections can be lethal, so why should we be coerced into sharing space with people who can be contagious?

This is disingenuous (or maybe you actually don't know what you're talking about).

We didn't require flu vaccines (although some places like hospitals did because it kills people...) because although the virus is deadly, it is not nearly as transmissible as COVID-19. Notice how when COVID-19 came about our healthcare infrastructure experienced far more stress than we do with seasonal flu? Maybe you should go talk to some medical workers who dealt with this stuff and ask them what it was like.

And you're completely incorrect about requiring vaccines against other diseases. You have to get exemptions for these. You can't even go to a university without these vaccines unless you have a medical condition that is documented or a religious exemption. We do require people get vaccines. Maybe you don't remember it (or didn't go to university - not judging that) because you were vaccinated like a normal person. Grade schools required vaccines. It's simple fucking public health. This isn't controversial. It sure as hell wasn't in 2019. Interesting how conservatives became liberal on the topic. Hmm.

And even if we didn't do any of the things you mentioned, we can just say that the prior policy was bad, and the new policy is good. Why did people go to the office who knowingly had strep or the flu? That was beyond stupid. Why did we waste so much time and money on people being sick when we had alternatives?

> Thing is, we were not concerned about it, just as you are not concerned about the possible side effects of a vaccine.

What are the possible side effects and what is the prevalence of those side effects? Tell me specifically the science and research you've done. You keep saying there are "possible side effects of a vaccine". Name the possible side effects. Hell, try doing it just for COVID-19 vaccine. Name the side effects, their prevalence, and explain the science behind the concern.

Why do you view these risks as unnecessary, but other more certain and more dangerous risks as necessary? What's your rationale? Do you even have a framework for these risks? Do you not fly airplanes since you're taking a 100% certain risk that a tiny risk of the plane crashing will occur?

> No-one asks you to side with the anti-vax people; the only request they can make is to peacefully co-exist.

Yea. How can my nephew who is immunocompromised peacefully co-exist with people who don't want to get vaccinated against a highly contagious disease because... it's "risky"?

Here's the truth of the matter. You take risks everyday. You take risks when you drink a beer, or smoke a cigarette, drive a car, or walk down the street. You view those risks as necessary, but you view this "tiny" (your words) risk of a vaccine to help stop a disease and protect other people as not a necessary risk. Yea. It's not even a good kind of selfishness. So no, I'm not interested in "peacefully co-existing" with such lunacy when you threaten other peoples lives for no good reason.