Surely you understand that you are surrounded by millions of others acting the same as you are, so you remain at high risk of catching COVID.

You're right, if everyone around you is vaccinated to the point of virtual herd immunity (afaik not currently true anywhere, but perhaps given more time / incentives / information that may change), you being the only unvaccinated person wouldn't be a major concern (except insofar as it indicates less concern for other people in other contexts).

The main issue is that there are still plenty of people with your same mindset. See the measles resurgence as less people got vaccinated: Even if you accept the personal effects of getting major illnesses, it comes with an increase in danger to the immunocompromised, people who medically cannot be vaccinated, and people whose vaccines don't protect them 100% of the time.

You're free to choose whether or not to get a vaccine, but the consequences of your decision affect more than just you.

[Edit: Additional note - while it seems preferable that everyone who can get vaccinated do so, I suppose if you're sticking with the face masks, hand washing, and social distancing you could still protect others without getting vaccinated. I'd respect that as a viable alternative. However, based on anecdata, the overlap of "people who won't get vaccinated" and "people careful about preventing disease spread" doesn't seem to be a huge section.]

More than happy to wear a mask, less than happy to take emergency vaccines.

I've had many vaccines before, I'm not opposed to vaccines. I'm opposed to this particular vaccines because:

* There are reports of dangerous side effects after taking it.

* It's a new vaccine and the effects of the spike proteins it forces your body to produce have been found in places we were told they wouldn't be found.

* No long term studies have been done, even though lipids from the vaccine have been found in reproductive tissues (we don't know what this means yet).

* The vaccine is still only under emergency use authorization.

* I'm not in a high risk category, high risk people should be vaccinated if they're the ones primarily at risk?

* People are being pressured and coerced into taking it even though they are scared to do so. This is wrong, people should feel comfortable to take it, not as if it's their duty to mankind to protect elderly people (who could just take the vaccine).

All the major side effects I've heard of have been very small in scope, i.e. the chance of a healthy person developing one of the dangerous side effects is extremely small, and certainly orders of magnitude smaller than their chance of proportionally damaging side-effects from the disease itself. As every vaccine currently developed has a small side-effect risk, this seems reasonable, unless you have a major piece of data I'm missing.

As far as I can tell, any variables about the vaccines seem extremely safe compared to the unknown variables incurred by those with symptomatic infections.

I agree that people in high risk categories who can be vaccinated should do so. However, the vaccine is only mostly effective, not 100% effective, so to some extent their health is still influenced by the health of those around them.

As far as social pressure, pushing (but not forcing) people toward decisions that benefit everyone seems like the entire point of social pressure. People should be given all of the relevant information and should be free to make their own medical decisions. However, there should be some expectation that one tries not to spread deadly diseases to vulnerable populations, and schools / businesses / etc. should absolutely feel free to require vaccination (of those capable of being vaccinated).

But re: your other comment about wearing a mask, if you're one of the rare people who won't be vaccinated but still keep your mask on in all public places, wash your hands frequently, and stay 6 feet apart from everyone not in your household, you not getting vaccinated isn't a major concern. But the people who use these justifications (disclaimer: anecdata) aren't usually taking those precautions.

> You’re doing it again, just stop, it’s not your job to convince people :)

> “It’s ok to make a choice, but here’s the consequences asshole”

> It’s exactly what I’m opposed too.

You're opposed to... people pointing out the consequences of your actions? Social pressure to protect the well-being of others?

I got all vaccinations and took basic safety precautions (washing hands regularly during flu season, etc) pre-COVID. I have always balanced the health of others with pragmatic limitations on my ability to take precautions. Now is no different; there's just extra weight on the "caution" side of the scale while a novel and dangerous pathogen spread around. I will continue to take as many precautions as are practical and necessary given world events.

Nobody is forcing you to do anything. But I don't see how it's unfair to have a social standard of caring for others.