I don't know why you're being downvoted. Established, tenured experts from every single one of the world's top medical institutions have expressed agreement with this statement (and also some in apparent opposition).

Examples:

* https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/05/07/covid-vaccines-for-chil...

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbvO4sUg1eA (Gupta is a pioneer of theoretical epidemiology at Oxford and has broken ground on a new platform for generic influenza vaccination which is very exciting)

* https://twitter.com/MartinKulldorff/status/13716384856863580... (note: In addition to his decades at Harvard researching vaccine safety, Kulldorff served two terms on a CDC vaccine technical subgroup - he is certainly in the very top echelon of experts on the topic of your comment)

That seems like the stupidest lottery to enter into however.

Even people without an "underlying health condition" have died. And even those who haven't died are experiencing long term complications from having had COVID.

So you can either hope you don't have a hard time with COVID if you catch it. Or you can drastically reduce your chances of having a hard time and of catching it all by just taking a couple minutes out of your day to get vaccinated.

Sorry, while I do like to gamble in general, if the penalties include death and/or permanent disability, I'm going with the option that makes that less likely. Which is the vaccine.

I have two people on my team who are both in their mid-20s. Both have had covid in the last couple of weeks, one hadn't had his vaccine the other only his first dose. The one without ended up in hospital for 2 weeks and was very nearly intubated. The other had a mild cough and has happily worked through it. I know which one I'd pick.

And without in-depth diagnostics to know both parties health state (not just shallow visual "they look healthy/are active") then you're making huge assumption as to if it was result of vaccine or not; and that ideology, lack of critical thinking, is why society is in the state we're; this will get downvoted too if it gets any exposure, another sign society is askew - because I'm correct in my statement but people who are ideological don't like being proven wrong.

Are we doing "in-depth diagnostics" of everyone?

No.

But based on statistical evidence alone, borne out by millions of data points, not a single solitary anecdote, the vaccine works to protect you from the worse of COVID if you catch it at all.

You decry a "lack of critical thinking", but don't apply any yourself. It's just a cudgel to you to use against people who don't agree with you. Consider the simple fact that you may be wrong.

And look at you, boosting every huckster claim but ignoring the one thing that is shown to work on a large scale. Would it soothe your feelings if we just said the vaccine was an ivermectin hcq cocktail?

Because it looks like you want to "them" to be wrong more than anything else.

From an individual point of view, where are you going to go for a in-depth health assessment? Presumably the same doctor who would recommend in the strongest terms that you get the vaccine unless you have a history of certain clotting disorders or are using particular medication. Unless you seek out a doctor on the fringes of established medical fact.

>Even people without an "underlying health condition" have died.

This isn't a useful cohort.

Age. Pre-existing conditions. Vitamin D deficiency.

So many factors that narrow the funnel.

You can narrow down your odds of complications with specificity - there's no need to discuss with these generalizations.

The fact is that contracting COVID is the worst possible way to achieve protection from COVID.

And at some point, you're just classifying everyone as having some sort of "factor". Which isn't useful either. If everyone has a factor, then factors don't matter. Especially if you have a factor that isn't obvious, like Vitamin D deficiency.

And like I implied, healthy, young people have been hospitalized with COVID and some of those have died. Just like some with "factors" have done ok.

But the one thing that reduces complications with a very, very high degree of success is the vaccine. It even reduces your chances of contracting the disease itself.

Not getting the vaccine is entering yourself in the stupidest lottery in history.

Vaccines are great and very effective at preventing bad outcomes, but let's be realistic about risks. Very few people without an underlying health condition have died.

94.9% of hospitalizations had an underlying health condition. Mainly high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes.

https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2021/21_0123.htm

99% of deaths in Italy had an underlying health condition.

https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/99-of-those-who-died-fr...

You do know that about half of all people in the U.S. classify as having hypertension, right? It's not uncommon. People who look perfectly healthy and feel like nothing is wrong can have it.

You probably have it.

So if we're being "realistic about risks", we have to acknowledge that roughly half of all people who get COVID are going to have at least one "underlying health condition".

> Vaccine isn't necessarily easy for everyone, and catching COVID isn't necessarily hard for everyone

There seems to be this prevailing belief that Covid infection == near certain death, when that's just not the case, but try explaining that...