> Many people haven't taken the vaccinations because they understand that they're not very helpful for them or their community.

Let's not confuse understanding and opining.

> The COVID vaccines don't work properly

[citation needed]

> and don't last very long.

This is true, but for a highly communicable and deadly disease, some protection is better than none.

> They don't stop transmission

Strawman. The vaccines slow transmission.

> and they're at best mildly protective to the health of people under 50.

Directly, perhaps. Working in the larger system of a vaccinated populace, there are clear benefits to the health of people under 50 - namely, reduced susceptibility to and prevalence of covid.

> At worst they might cause heart problems and other unexpected side-effects.

Yep, and that's a risk that's worth taking given the relatively infrequent nature of those side effects compared to the relatively frequent and widespread nature of "dying of covid" or "having permanent, debilitating injuries from covid".

> In balance, they're mostly superfluous to the health of most people.

This is only true if you're viewing it through the lens of "I get the vaccine and therefore I am protected". Vaccination is a systems problem and each person vaccinated increases the overall resilience of the system.

> In what world is it ethical for governments to force untested therapies on people while side-stepping laws that were established to prevent just that?

You're right, that would be unethical. Thankfully, that has not happened. Pfizer was approved on August 23 and the US federal vaccine mandate doesn't go into effect until January 4. The mRNA vaccines are among the most thoroughly vetted and tested therapies released to the public to date.

BTW: nothing about the covid vaccine rollout has sidestepped policy. EUAs are specifically included in our laws specifically for situations like covid which require rapid response.

> How does it make sense to blatantly coerce people to take the shots, while thinking yourself virtuous and saying you're "just trying to help"?

Because the people who won't get vaccinated of their own accord are actively hindering efforts to end the pandemic - and they're doing that based on an incorrect worldview that is entirely politically driven.

> If this was a lifesaving vaccine against a horrible death and a sure-fire way to end the pandemic, it might make sense - but then would coercion and censorship be necessary?

1) it is and 2) apparently so.

> Independent cost-benefit analysis reports (as crude as they must be - at least someone is trying to calculate it openly) find that most "anti-COVID" interventions of governments in the past 2 years have killed more people than they've saved. I have no sympathy for people who push the necessity of such interventions, who don't understand that there's a high probability that they might be wrong.

[citation needed]

> No epidemiologist prior to 2019 ever suggested that locking down healthy people was a good idea; and not just because that's not a cool thing to do, but because it doesn't work and it's ultimately harmful. Suddenly, because China did it we all believe it's the best thing to do?

China's actions have nothing to do with it. If you couple a highly communicable contagion with lack of access to tests (especially early on in the pandemic) and lack of willingness to actually go get tested (there are still small bubbles of the country where people don't believe that covid actually exists, so why would they go get tested?), then the safest thing to do from a public health standpoint is to try a blanket reduction of interactions where covid can be spread. If you were tasked with reducing community spread of a deadly disease and you had no way to track, measure, or even reliably identify the disease, what would you have done? There are very few solutions that reliably accomplish that goal.

Again: it's not about you. Lockdowns are a system-wide solution to a systems problem.

> In terms of understanding scientific consensus, and trying to "find the truth of the matter", the first most basic and crucial rule is to NOT accept conflicts of interest. All governments "encouraging" the COVID vaccinations are locked into contracts with Pfizer, Moderna, etc. for the next 5-10 years. They espouse the scientific assertions of those companies and outright censor scientific assertions that contradict them. To trust them despite this, is sheer stupidity.

Agreed: truth is important and conflicts of interest are an indication of something going wrong. The governments who are contracted with the vaccine manufacturers are obligated (in the US, by the constitution) to protect their populace. Vaccines are the safest and most economically sound method of doing so (and they have been for hundreds of years). The contract with vaccine manufacturers is not the cause of the governments' public health standpoint, but the result of their obligation to protect the public. There are plenty of independent scientific articles examining the efficacy and safety of the vaccines.

I would invite you to share specific scientific articles that have been censored. Even the name of a scientist whose work in this area was censored would be helpful.

> How many times does this need to be repeated until it gets through to people? Do we really need to repeat the atrocities of the past, over and over again? This is all a sad joke.

Perhaps when what you're saying aligns with reality (rather than distorting reality to match your preconceived notions), you'll have better success communicating your point. I'm assuming you're comparing vaccination to the holocaust (as is the common refrain). I would kindly invite you to do some serious examination on that one. They aren't even similar. I would submit that your actual point is that you don't like being told what to do and likening it to a historical atrocity is a way to have it come across as a semi-legitimate complaint, rather than petulance.

> The road to hell is paved with good intentions, etc. etc.; why not actually understand the problem before trying to solve it? Has there been honest cost-benefit analysis? No one needs melancholic condescension, we need appropriate solutions that work.

The problem is well understood by the people who need to understand it. You could go understand the problem were you motivated to do so. There has been a cost-benefit analysis. We have solutions that work and the condescension you're perceiving is likely due to your inability or unwillingness to accept the solutions that we have.

> Not coming to terms with this, and feeling sad about the poor stupid people who didn't make the same decision you did doesn't make you virtuous or helpful; it makes you a useful idiot. I don't say that as an insult, it's a socio-political phenomenon that enables all of the dumbest and most dangerous societal "decisions" throughout history.

Ending an argument with "I'm right and you're an idiot" is surely an indicator of the contrary.

> You want to save lives and end the emergency? Start ventilating indoor areas properly, start expanding healthcare infrastructure to deal with surges, start encouraging people to have healthy lifestyles, start developing proper vaccines (if that's even currently possible, considering the weakness of Flu vaccines), start developing therapies for helping those who become sick, stop locking down healthy people, stop restricting people's ability to make money and live their lives.

sigh In order: Yes; impractical; impractical; encouragement clearly doesn't work, but the FDA is doing it anyway; already done - just go get one (flu vaccines are different due to the speed of mutation); already in progress (pfizer and merck both have antiviral pills); already done? (are you aware of active lockdowns in the US?), and too unspecific to comment on.