JoeBob, it's a relative risk, like anything else. Your chance of dying from CoV2 if you catch it is low, as you rightly point out. (But if you DO get hospitalized in an ICU and die, it's a slow and pretty sch!tty death.) And as I replied to Idaho Shooter above, your risk of dying from the vaccine is really, really low. The difference in relative risks of the two is quite substantial, which even an arithmetician can see, I'm sure.
When you were vaccinated as a kid against measles, mumps, and rubella, your chance of dying from one of those diseases was very small, but not zero. For vulnerable kids, like those with cerebral palsy, or leukemia, congenital heart disease, however, the risk of death from those disease was much, much higher. Your risk of dying from the vaccine was significantly smaller than anyone's risk of dying from the disease, which is why the public health system and your parents made the decision to go ahead with your vaccine as a kid.
The benefits of the MMR vaccine did not just accrue to you, however. By vaccinating 85%+ of the kid population we reduced the overall incidence of those diseases in the entire population, which in turn meant that. By getting YOU vaccinated, your parents (and the PH system) conferred a far greater level of protection for the vulnerable kids. As a consequence a lot of those kids got past their dire childhood diseases and grew up to become productive members of society.
I didn't get the Pfizer vaccine because I was afraid of getting CoV2. I got it because I know that if I get it, and you get it, and 75-85% of the population gets it, a lot of nice old grannies won't get it and die from it. See WyColoCowboy's post 2 up from here as I write this.
But if you persist in seeing this as a "what's in it for me" question, there's not much I can say to help you.
Last edited by DocRocket; 05/03/21.
"I'm gonna have to science the schit out of this." Mark Watney, Sol 59, Mars
