It’s interesting that thus far what you’ve shared suggests we are now comparing the ultimate side effect of the disease on one side and any side effect on the other. Wouldn’t it be fair to compare more equal risks? Like hospitalization vs hospitalization. Or death vs death. Or long term disability vs long term disability. Just to be transparent and open.

As for the freedom thing I agree with you. I’ll take freedom but I think you present a false dichotomy. We don’t have to choose between public health and freedom. In the 50’s they did vaccination campaigns in the schools. Literally lined up all the kids and watched while they took the polio vaccine. Kids had to swallow a sugar cube covered in vaccine and then show their empty mouth.

And before you say polio was different and was a kids disease, that’s not the point. The point is that it was government-sponsored and government-enforced vaccination. And that was 60 years ago. And we didn’t have some remarkable limitation of freedoms because of it. It didn’t lead to mass population control and the overly intrusive nanny state that forced people to do all sorts of things. In fact it contributed to a healthy and free generation that provided the greatest period of economic expansion in the history of our country.

The fear of loss of freedom is stoked by talking-head ideologues who make gobs of money by creating fear and anxiety for political benefit.

It’s complicated and we do everyone a disservice when we try and boil it down to loss of freedom vs public health. When we need both to ensure both.

I disagree on the point that extolling the benefits of the vaccine and actively trying to debunk the myths and misinformation of fear-mongers is equal to force and coercion. Lest we think that any and all sales and marketing, including sharing the gospel via missionaries, is coercion.