I think the OP was asking why take it if nothing is going to change? If you can still get sick and pass it on? Your answer is correct by the way. It will protect you and do what vaccines do, which is beat the virus down and get it to where it is circulating at very low levels. The vaccine + natural immunity from people already infected will do just that. But you'd never know that with media and government messaging who keep giving us the impression that the vaccine will help some, but not enough to really have any significant impact. It's a lie of course but it's being said to prepare people to keep the measures going which leads me to your next point.

Why do you think you'll get that freedom back? Unless you have imposed restrictions on yourself you'll have to wait for the government to decide when you can get your life back. And that's the crux of the issue in our society.

If your restrictions are self imposed then that's one thing. If bars are open and your friends want to meet you can do that whenever you like.

Many others though have a different point of view and feel we can go out to restaurants and meet friends now, without a vaccine. For us, we are waiting for the government to open up those types of places and are not convinced that even a vaccine will be enough for them. They keep moving the goal posts and use vague language as to what is necessary to get back to normal.

Agreed - we all got vaccines when younger for various diseases in the past - this will just be another added to that. Why is it freaking everyone out so much? misinformation and lack of trust in medicines and science. There are many viruses that are still around but you don't hear about it unless you hear of a group that refuses to vaccinated their kids - then suddenly a virus that was known long ago appears.

Just thin out the herd by ridding ourselves of idiots who can't think already

Some people freak because they are already slanted towards being an anti-vaxer.

But most of us are "concerned" because of the lack of research that went into the development of it. Most vaccines take 10 years to develop. This took 8 months with lots of short cuts. It's reasonable to ask lots of questions and be on the fence about taking this one.

My opinion is that it probably is safe. But what is extremely disturbing is the lack of discussion and even the dismissal of any safety concerns. Why can't we even talk about it without being lumped into the anti vaxer crowd? Because that's how all of this Corona management has been. Shut up, do as you're told and don't ask questions which is an attitude people will always fight against.

I came out in the middle of the AIDS crisis and had a lover die of AIDS when I was still in my 20s. I cared for him to the end. So I take pandemics seriously. I was also told I had a brain tumor at the age of 18. 22 years later they said it was just a scar, but I've thought a fair amount about my own mortality.

What I learned from the AIDS epidemic is that you listen to science and do risk reduction. So I simply stopped indoor activities with people other than my husband. I still did stuff with my cycling club. And took commuter rail trains and the subway to go on bike rides since neither had been identified as particularly risky. The big "splurge" was going to spend the weekend with a friend and her daughter. But we knew they were low risk as were were and we got tested a couple days before. And of course I put on a mask when outside my home (though not for exercise).

And having had my lover die a year before ARVs came out, when the vaccines came out for COVID and they were 95% effective I got even stricter about risk. My motto was "you don't want to be the person who dies a week before he could have gotten a vaccine". Been there, done that with my lover. Lesson learned. (Though the AIDS crisis was completely different - it's not like he took risk at a time when there was any real hope.)

So it's not like my life stopped. But certain things stopped. I was fine with that but I look forward to having a full life again.

As far as people who didn't stop their lives… I wasn't going to be one of those people for three reasons - 1) my life is worth more than that, 2) I have a problem with killing other people, which is exactly what can happen if you pass it onto someone else, and 3) the pandemic ends more quickly and it's less severe if everyone just sucks it up and does what's best for the community (e.g. like they've done in Taiwan and New Zealand).

Going through what you have with the AIDS epidemic and losing someone is life changing I can imagine. It would of course lead you to the conclusion that you should reduce risk and listen to the doctors to make yourself better. To contemplate your mortality and see the world differently afterwards. I can fully relate and agree.

I think that if you want to take the vaccine and feel it will protect you then that is the right choice.

My only gripe was about the fact that we can't "discuss" what the right choice is nowadays. That there are thousands of scientists who don't get any airtime because they don't hold the mainstream opinion. Not that the vaccine is bad, but why can't we even question it? That's pretty much what science is all about. Questioning and questioning some more.

Like you I too want to NOT hurt people, but my belief is that these measures are hurting more people and they are doing more harm than good.

On the vaccine front, I'm happy it's working and feel that it's a "good thing" it's available.

Again, I want to know why if I ask certain questions of it am I dismissed or lumped into the anti vaxer crowd when I am pro vaccine and not against people taking this at all.

My conclusion is that this covid issue has become political and emotional, and once that happens it's hard for people to see clearly enough to have a discussion and make the best decisions.

Emotional decisions cost us even though we all do that everyday of our lives.

When beliefs don't line up with facts from peer-reviewed studies and findings large scale datasets, you change the beliefs to match the facts.

The important thing is being able to distinguish good data from bullshit, made up data.

True. As long as we all get a chance to talk about it, without being censored, cancelled or shamed for putting forth our ideas.

Science doesn't really care about your "ideas". What it absolutely loves is people asking questions and getting to understand the data - both what the studies are saying and their limitations.

So yes, let's have a discussion. But the ground rules have to be that scientific findings have far greater weight than a lay person's beliefs and ideas. The problem lately is that certain news sources have been giving equal or greater weight to unfounded theories than they are to rigorously produced scientific findings. That type of discussion is harmful (in this case to public health) so it deserves censorship. People's lives are at risk. They deserve the actual facts so they can make informed decisions.

Science likes that but the media, our governments and many of our citizens don't.

Great. they why have so many scientists who have been epidemiologists for decades been left out of the conversation? Why are they shunned? Thousands, across the world?

I find the same, CNN, MSNBC and Fox to name a few.

Of course. here are some facts. Florida is wide open (has been since October) and doing much better than locked down California. Why?

Some states who don't have mask mandates are doing the same in terms of corona infections and deaths, as other who do. Why?

Some countries locked down hard like Peru, UK, Spain and got the worst of it. Others like Japan, Belarus and Sweden didn't lock down or not much at all and are doing the same and in some cases better than the first 3 I told you about. Why?

If you're going to make us wear masks, lock us down and make us all suffer you better have an answer to all these questions.

Otherwise you are taking a situation in which you have no control (a respiratory virus) and compounding it by doing something that makes things much, much worse for us all.

But are the facts real? And are they complete? The media only tells bits and pieces. We do not hear about the healthy that are dying from this vaccine. Small numbers? maybe... but who is to say you are not one of the small numbers that die?

Hard to tell what and what not to believe. ;)

Look for studies that are peer reviewed. Credible news sources will state whether the studies are peer reviewed or not. Though if they say it was published in a well-known scientific/medical journal (e.g. JAMA, The Lancet), then that can be assumed. Findings in peer-reviewed journals are "real" and they will state the limitations of the findings which will tell you their level of completeness.

If you're only hearing anecdotal stories of adverse reactions and not seeing the full, contextual data, then change your news sources. Just the other day I saw that after the first 13.8 million doses administered there were only a bit less than 7000 adverse events, 91% of which were deemed minor. There were ~122 deaths among the people who got the vaccine and none of them were attributed to the vaccination. [I'm doing that from memory - can't find the source at the moment, but I'm pretty sure I'm close to the actual numbers.]

So how do I know if I'll be one of the small number of people who die? I don't. But I trust the statistics that my chance of having problems is FAR smaller with the vaccine than without. That's sorta the whole point of vaccines. Science is a wonderful thing.