> The risks of long term effects with COVID are very low, and their severity is very low, and in almost all cases those symptoms disappear.

How can you possibly know that, if no person in the world contacted covid more than 2 years ago? How do you know it won't lead to lung cancer in 5 or 10 or 20 years? Or to brain tumors? This virus can linger in the body. And we know of cancers caused by viruses.

If you claim that you can't rule out long term side effects of mRNA vaccines, you can't claim that you can rule out long term effects of covid.

> So why is your desire to contain one type of low risk any more important than others’ desire to contain other types of low risk?

One is scientifically estimated to be orders of magnitude less than other. But that's not why you vaccinate. You vaccinate to avoid immediate danger of covid. Yes. It's rather survivable by young people, but not everybody is young and even youngish people have very significant risks of severe outcomes. Also you vaccinate to reduce the amount of opportunities virus has to evolve into some nastier version.

> Regarding mRNA vaccines - I don’t think you are seeing things the way the vaccine hesitant are.

I'm definitely not seeing it like them because I know enough about how cells, vaccines and viruses work.

> The mRNA vaccine can have long term effects we don’t understand.

It can have at worst the effect that a (covid) virus might have. mRNA vacc don't do anything that any virus that replicates inside human body routinely doesn't do. And viruses do way more weird DNA and RNA rewriting tricks than mRNA vaccines were ever accused of possibly having.

You have no biological reason to be afraid mRNA vaccines having long term effect than you have whenever you are exposed to one of hundreds of mild (or not so mild) viruses.

> Just because we are focused on its mechanism for efficacy doesn’t meant here aren’t other possible mechanisms involved that we haven’t understood yet.

You can say that about anything. You can't be totally sure that by exiting the window of your apartment this time you won't float gently to the ground by some not yet understood possible mechanism. It's just really unlikely.

And it's also unlikely that covid vaccines will have any long term effect that the covid itself won't have.

> Likewise, we don’t know if any of the other vaccine ingredients will have long-term effects.

I don't think the mRNA vaccines contain any ingredient that haven't been researched for what happens when it's injected into the body. It would be insane to include substance of unknown effect to be the part of this product.

> And certainly we’ve seen numerous products - both medical and non-medical - banned decades after their initial introduction.

There are larger number of sets of competent eyes on this vaccines than anytime ever on those recalled products. Because pandemic is kind of a big deal.

> The risks of that are low, but it’s nonzero.

According to quantum physics probability of rarely anything is exactly zero. Risk of taking covid vaccine is practically zero. And surely magnitudes of order lower than risk of getting in contact with sars-cov-2.

> but in case it helps make my points more acceptable, I am vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine as is my entire family.

I'm sorry but it does not. It makes it even worse, because while you are happily enjoying benefits of safe vaccine you are publishing misleading opinions that might cause someone to avoid the vaccine and be exposed to all risks of meeting sars-cov-2 without any preparation. Next time lead with that information. It should help your readers understand your position. But not make it more acceptable.

> > Did you hear about a single person dying in hospital from covid saying
> I don’t understand why you’re bringing this up.

To illustrate that people are grievously wrong in their risk estimates and shouldn't be forced (or trusted) to rely on them if scientific knowledge on the subject exists. "Let everybody do their own math" is a horrible idea.

> I could equally say that the few people who experience severe vaccine side effects may also experience regret.

The thing is there are no such people because any research so far that points out to any possible side effects of mRNA vaccine is not conclusive. Which tells you something given that billions of people already took the vaccine. I'm sure there are a lot of people that experience some health issues after they took the vaccine and many might wrongly regret taking it. If the vaccine caused them, they'd have them when they contract covid too.

And those rare cases of people with anaphylactic shock often don't regret their decision to take the vaccine because it was properly informed decision.

> Or that years down the road, it is possible that all those who received [some vaccine] will regret their choice if it is found to cause cancer or something else.

Again. If people who took covid vaccine will ever get cancer because of it, then people who contracted covid will get double cancer because their bodies experienced the same thing that vaccinated bodies did, only may times stronger plus additional viral proteins that vaccine didn't contain the mRNA for.

> The thing is, we don’t really know because we are dealing with the unknown. We don’t understand either the virus or the human body fully.

Yes. Especially with covid. We don't fully understand how it does all the things it does though we understand quite a bit already. And we can only hope that we will be able to mitigate the harm.

But we shouldn't throw hands in the air, reject what we already know about virology, immunology, vaccinology and exclaim that "nature works in mysterious way". New things might be dangerous, that's why we gather knowledge. To estimate risks properly.

If we wanted to eliminate all the risks we wouldn't use agriculture yet because who knows what harm eating intentionally grown food might do in the long run.

> I feel it is legitimate for people to choose their own risk profile based on their experiences and gut.

It's a legitimate recipe for disaster. People don't have knowledge or skill to arrive at better decision this way instead of just listening to a knowledgeable person.

> I also don’t think anyone should be obligated to undergo a medical procedure like vaccination against their will, because bodily autonomy is a fundamental civil liberty

That's a good sentiment, and I wish we are able to keep it wholesale. But unless more people will make correct decision out of their properly informed free will vaccinations in times of pandemic become an exception to this bodily autonomy.

Also other people civil liberty and bodily autonomy would mean that they shouldn't be required to take additional risks by interacting with people that refuse to get vaccinated. Same way you have right to refuse dining in a place where people with hepatitis prepare the meals.

> I don’t think here’s an obligation to have to take action to protect others against some third-party agent like a virus

Virus is not an agent. It's just a part of our environment.

In my country you are legally required to help traffic accidents victims.
I just read that in USA there is no such obligation unless you caused the danger or are in some relation to people in danger. What's more you can get sued for honest attempt at helping. Which is just bizarre.