The problem with this whole situation is we were/are in inherently uncharted waters here. I suspect people above a certain age or in certain circumstances should be vaccinated and probably get boosted at some frequency and people below a certain age who are otherwise healthy do not receive enough of a benefit for this to be a blanket recommendation. I am confident that the benefit to the patient and others (vis a vis transmission) is too low to mandate vaccination for young people.
What has happened is the authorities and public health officials generally marched out there in a very authoritative and confident way, asserted things they could not assert, and then mandated censorship and vaccination in a very cavalier way. There's been a lot of lying, or more charitably, just getting ahead of their skis and asserting things as truth that were just unknowable. This puts everyone in a situation of having to evaluate a lot of murky data on their own.
I was a microbiology major in college long enough to have taken immunology, virology, etc courses. I'm not totally ill-equipped, but I have no interest or frankly time and ability to read and digest these studies and make the best possible decisions for myself. Lacking some central authority I can trust now, I don't think I have a choice though.
I very much hope mRNA vaccines turn out to be revolutionary. There's a lot of promise there, and maybe we've even realized it. If there are issues, maybe they are minor and can be resolved, but the damage to public trust is almost irreparable.
If you're referring to mRNA vaccines here, then this simply isn't true. They had been used in humans before. For example they were given to humans in trials of a rabies vaccine in 2013. (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w)
mRNA vaccines are a recent and evolving tool, but not something that is untested or has never been used before.
> and it _feels_ like the powers that be just don't want to ask certain questions.
Is it worth asking yourself why it feels that way when readily available evidence shows otherwise?
> It would still increase confidence and dispel paranoia if it and its possible harms were studied in a much more direct way than having to look at secondary metrics, like voluntary vaers data,
Not all the research looking into the safety of these vaccines is dependent on VAERS data. Research on the safety of these vaccines has been going on starting long before they were ever used on a human, and even before the release of covid vaccines trials with controls and monitoring were done to look for safety issues. The very article we're commenting under is about research that didn't depend on voluntary vaers data or all cause mortality stats. This is how science detects problems with medications and vaccines. By doing research and trials for years, then following all of the data we have available to reach the most likely conclusions.
> COVID was never very dangerous for young people.
That is very much unclear. The fact remains that we're still learning about the risk that getting infected has on everyone, young and old alike. This takes time. We already have evidence to suggest there may be long term or even permanent damage from prior infection even in cases where the symptoms were mild or even undetected.
Lots of people didn't want the vaccine, but there were many many reasons for that and not all of them held up to facts and reason. At least here in the US, people were strongly encouraged to take it, but ultimately still had the choice and there are many who are not vaccinated to this day. According to the best data we have right now, it appears that those people are dying and getting seriously ill at a rate not seen in the vaccinated population.
> For me I can't help but conclude that an agenda was pushed here;
this is very broad, and speculative, but I'm inclined to agree with you. I think that agenda was most likely promoting what the best information we have the time indicated was the best available tools we had at the time to combat a new virus that devastated our economy and our way to life. Of course governments and those in power wanted people to take them. Wouldn't they all be hoping it would help things return to normal as quickly as possible?
> The people pushing it may have even been right, but I'll never be able to trust them like I did before.
This I also agree with although probably for different reasons. I've lost a great deal of faith in the CDC to be honest with the public and in our government to make sure that the American people are well cared for in times of crisis.
It may still turn out that the vaccines were a terrible mistake and that everyone who took it will suddenly drop dead in 20 years time, but today there's no evidence to suggest that might be the case. I try to make the best choices I can with the information I have currently available. I accept that I may have screwed myself, but I'm putting my money on avoiding getting infected at all if I can avoid it, and using the best medications and vaccines available to minimize the harm that an infection would cause me if I fail at that.