I know that I shouldn’t but…
I’m going to strictly attempt to speak to and answer the OP’s question rather than argue with or try to convince anyone about what they should or should not do.
All medical decisions should always be driven by a risk/benefit analysis. Does the risk outweigh the benefit or not? To date, I have not been stuck. That is by choice.
I don’t deny that the virus exists. I would venture to say that I, probably more than most anyone here, have known more people (more than twelve, less than twenty, mostly physicians who were exposed early on without sufficient PPE) who have died FROM Covid-19. I don’t say that as a dick measuring exercise and for those that do have a higher tally than I then you have my sincere sympathy.
So why haven’t I chosen to get stuck? I did not vote for Trump nor am I an “anti-vaxxer” which is just a dismissive term used to silence people. I’ve had vaccinations for damn near everything including updating my TDap during this “crisis”. I take what I think is necessary and/or beneficial to my situation. I never get a Flu shot because I don’t consider it beneficial or necessary for me.
I’ve watched the development of this “crisis” very closely from the very beginning. The data is clear that this has been grossly overhyped and the vulnerable/at-risk are now well known. I don’t believe that I need a vaccine for Covid-19 anymore than I need an annual flu shot. That is my informed medical decision with regards to my health.
I am however of the belief that international travel will be largely impossible without a vaccination and that is extremely important to me. Every country has the right to control their national borders and I believe that most will make it a requirement for entry. For that reason and that reason alone I have been watching and will eventually get vaccinated. The first question has been when will the world open up because there is no reason for me to take the shot if it still won’t be possible to travel freely.
The second and more important question to this discussion is which vaccine to take. You see when people say “take the vaccine” they are showing their ignorance. There is not “the vaccine” but rather numerous vaccines. I’ve watched the developments and read what literature is available, talked with practicing physicians and paid attention to the roll outs. Choosing which vaccine is safest has been my focus. They are all experimental, none are approved and all are “authorized” for emergency use only. It’s still a question of risk/benefit but none of them are “proven” to be “safe” and any doctor who says they are should have his license taken away.
Normally anecdotal evidence has little value but in this case it has been a deciding factor in my decisions to date. Of the first eight people that I knew personally who got vaccinated four had the standard mild, nothing to worry about symptoms. The other four were a different story. The very first one was a 55 y/o female suffering from the effects of a previously contracted tropical disease (thus why she was at the front of the line). She immediately dropped to the floor in anaphylactic shock. Fortunately she was in a hospital and not a grocery store. The RN used her Epipen, she was sent straight to the ER, two days in ICU and three weeks bed ridden at home before she recovered. Next was a 65 y/o female (the wife of my now retired former physician) who had never had a nose bleed in her life until the day after her vaccination when she experienced seemingly uncontrollable bleeding (it has not recurred). Next was a 28 y/o very healthy female who experienced complete loss of vision in one eye for six hours immediately after her vaccination. The last of the eight was a 68 y/o male who happens to be my personal physician. He ended up in bed, unable to even get up for two days until he recovered.
After his experience I asked my doctor for his advice. At the time he told me that if I didn’t intend to travel that I should not get vaccinated. If I wanted to travel then I should wait for the J&J vaccine to be authorized and made available. I followed his advice with the addition of waiting for a couple of million other lab rats to take it first when it hit the streets. Clearly that was a wise decision based on the subsequent blood clot issues.
So I do not consider any of the current vaccines available in the States to be safe enough in relation to the (still) potential benefits. I have looked at other vaccines around the world and considered going to the UAE to get the Russian Sputnik V but dismissed that thought. Cuba has two of their own vaccines that they will give to anyone who comes but I don’t know anything about them and don’t know that any country would recognize them as legitimate vaccinations anyways. And then there is the ethical question of going offshore to get a vaccine knowing you are taking from a limited supply in a country that doesn’t have the money the US has to provide for their own population. And I do believe that there are many people who would benefit medically from being vaccinated so taking from them is a non-starter for me. I also know that I could obtain fake documentation saying I’ve been vaccinated but that just isn’t in my DNA.
As it stands now I am awaiting the release of Novavax and will again wait for a couple of million other lab rats to take it before I do and then only if international travel is returned to a somewhat normal state.
I’m not going to go into the nonsense of me being a danger to others or the thoroughly discredited “asymptomatic” Typhoid Mary or the fear mongering “variants” (there are already hundreds of variants, that’s what a virus does).
To the OP, you should know that you are not alone in being hesitant. During Senate testimony the heads of the NIH and CDC were just asked under oath how many of their employees were vaccinated and they both estimated that it was only about 60% (despite having head of the line priority for months). That is no doubt a high estimate but tracks with estimates for medical professionals nation-wide. Again I am not giving advice nor do I want to argue with some uneducated office boy parroting the propaganda of the day. I hope this answers the question posed and I would encourage you to do what’s right for you.