My second shot made me feel more ill than I have any other time in the last half decade or so aside from a bout with dengue. It’s likely I’ve also had COVID within that stretch and it barely registered (had a slightly sore throat for a few days after confirmed exposure).

I’ve also had the flu shot most every year, even though I really have never been seriously ill from the flu, because it’s an easy preventative measure without side effects. If the booster for COVID regularly makes me more sick than the disease it protects against that’s definitely a burden, a rather large one. Just because it’s killed vulnerable people doesn’t mean the calculus for me or others with strong immune systems is the same.

Flu shot never made me more than uncomfortable for a day. Second shot of Moderna took me out of commission for 5 days. 2 of them being with 38C fever. I am done with the these shots. Did not get booster but did get Omicron over the holidays, it was like a weak cold that dragged on for a few extra days.

The covid vaccines make me seriously sick for at least a day or two.

If you didn't get sick from it (current formulation or perhaps new ones in future), would you just take it and move on?

Known downtime of a day or two (and not feeling well) is, to me, still a tradeoff to make compared to the potential of being intubated in an ICU. Each Pfizer shot I've had I've had somewhere of 8-18 hours of being really knocked out, usually starting around 24 hours after injection. I usually have milder (but some) reaction to flu vaccine each year (usually up to 8 hours of fatigue/headache/etc) within a day or so.

Risks/reward still moves to me take the shots.

> compared to the potential of being intubated in an ICU.

Comments like this are only intelligible if one considers the probability of each outcome.

Deterministically (probability 1) getting unpleasant vaccine side effects vs. deterministically ending up intubated in an ICU? Sure, give me a booster every month. But that's not actually the relevant calculus -- your probability of ending up in an ICU is already extremely low after two shots.

if I didn't get sick or there was a new one that's better of course I would take it. I think t-cells are still robust long term so I'm safe from severe disease. That's what I've read so far in the news but I'll keep monitoring.

Because there's no evidence more boosters have any efficacy. And there are side-effects, despite people trying to downplay them. My SO had a legit allergic reaction to an mRNA vaccine...

"no evidence". The first round of boosters have shown strong efficacy. Why would a second round of boosters not have any efficacy? It seems that you've chosen the wrong null hypothesis.

Show a study, any study (and not just a news article that links to another article claiming 'studies' show blah) where they reduce the risk of serious infection or transmission versus only 2 doses.

Simply pumping up antibodies for a couple weeks isn't the same as efficacy.

First off, I need to point out that you are committing the logical fallacy of selective rigor. An increase in neutralizing antibodies is not the same as a clinical trial proving efficacy, but I'm pretty sure that increases in neutralizing antibodies STRONGLY correlate with vaccine efficacy, across different diseases. So you've already called out your own bias.

So, here is a pre-print that does show real-world effectiveness (as opposed to efficacy). https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.11.15.21266341v... And of course I know that you will apply your selective rigor by pointing out that it is a pre-print. But less-biased people will realize that science can only work so quickly.

The lethality of influenza is grossly overexagerated to sell vaccines. This started in the 90s when pharma realized there was an untapped market of aging Americans they could scare into creating demand for their product.