Discussions

I have a couple of friends who have chosen to not get vaccinated. I have asked them what their reasoning is and they have yet to share that information. And they may not. They both have elderly parents, are active in their communities and one is soon to become a grandparent.  
 
IMO whether or not to get vaccinated against Covid is not a personal decision. Everyone has a shared responsibility to support the health of the community. If you do not get vaccinated you put people around you at risk. Those are my thoughts.  
Am I right in my reasoning? Can anyone share their thoughts?

I wish there was more info on natural immunity. If a person has recovered from COVID surely their immunity is better than from a man made vaccine.

This has been one of the truly sad byproducts of the pandemic. A percentage of the population have been seeded with an unfortunate combination of online reasoning hacks and a mistrust of traditional authority figures and media. The end result is them being quite hard to reach once viewpoints are entrenched... and putting all kinds of relationships and friendships in the crosshairs. Maybe to a fault but I’m a solution seeker that usually has himself convinced that there’s always a way when we know that we're all at the basic level chasing happiness and nobody is intentionally trying to hurt anyone… though like latebloomer I suspect success is a lot more likely in a situation where the relationship and trust is there.  
 
This is almost a month old now, but the link below is a report prepared by the Province on Vaccine hesitancy and outreach. Worth noting that the percentage of the population designated as “unreachable” has fallen from 12% back in November to just 4% recently… and that will include any skewing of results by whatever’s been going on in Southern Health:  
https://www.gov.mb.ca/asset_library/en/covidvaccine/vaccine-expanded-outreach-06032021.pdf  
 
Still in looking at some of the uptake rates just to the South (eg North Dakota in the 40s), we’re quite fortunate with how well the vaccine campaign is going on average in this region and Province save for the odd outlier region. Brandon today reached 75% uptake, within the whole Prairie Mountain region having recently crossed 70%. We need more than that to best protect the population from future waves from any other variants that might come about, but its great to see us moving closer toward goals that will allow more steps toward some of the aspects of life that we’ve had to give up to keep this community, our friends, family and neighbours safe.  
 
This goes back to last year, but a thread I'd started on the topic of people we know getting the disinformation bug:  
https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=1064224&cat_id=14  
 
If you have the time, check out a new book called The Scout Mindset. Recommend in part as a look at how people can become dug in on logically weak viewpoints and might give some more guidance on how you can approach.  
 
Re some posts that had to be addressed, I’ll be clear. Has not been room for misinformation/disinformation on these forums throughout the pandemic and this thread won’t be any different. Facts come from legitimate, verifiable sources and not stuff thats been floated and circulated on Facebook in just such a way that it helps people believe something false that they want to believe. Facts come from real sources such as provincial and federal levels, the WHO and reputable media outlets. There is no grand conspiracy that accounts for all of the above. When in doubt about one’s own personal medical situation and best course of action please consult your medically trained and educated physician.

It sounds like the OP has gotten what they’re looking for and so this thread will have served its intended purpose…… but for those with questions on safety the Gov of Canada has prepared a link with lots of info on the topic including more on the process any given vaccine has to go through re safety and effectiveness before being approved for use in this country:  
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/vaccination-children/safety-concerns-side-effects.html  
 
Re The first question you’ve asked, if you look up the amount of global fatalities since the pandemic began (3.966M so far) getting vaccinated is contributing to the world not having to go through that and lockdowns again with current and (hopefully) future variants. You can find worldwide data at https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html  

We need as few hosts for this virus as possible and as many people as possible with a level of protection that limits the chance for serious and severe Covid cases that can inundate the medical system. There have been instances of serious Covid outcomes in people of all ages, but even if by luck you yourself don't experience one you can spread this easily transmissible virus to someone else that does. 

Out of 31M+ vaccine doses administered in Canada, you can find data on adverse reactions (serious and non) at the link below. You'll quickly find there's no equivalency to draw:  
https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/vaccine-safety/  
 
If one has questions on these topics that influence their health decisions please don’t base your decision on social media. Please contact your licensed family physician ASAP or start by calling Health Links at 1.888.315.9257