When this all started and the stats for influenza deaths came out (usually as a poor attempt to downplay the seriousness of COVID) I was shocked at my own ignorance as to the effect of influenza. I'd previously tried to but been inconsistent in getting my flu shot, but now that I understand the human cost that's changed for me.
It amazes me that people would be hesitant to get it and that there'd even be need to mandate it now. None of the same arguments can be made against the flu shot that can be made against the COVID vaccine (and in fact if we had yearly COVID vaccines those arguments would be moot there as well), but I'm sure we'd have a ton of vaccine deniers there, which really just proves it's ideology and feelings over any sort of real concern.
I've said this in another thread, but many I've talked to who don't want the vaccine are hesitant because of the accelerated timeline. A typical vaccine goes through 3 phases of clinical trials, with phase 1 lasting 1-10 years, phase 2 lasting 2-3 years, and phase 3 lasting 2-4 years.
That means you have anywhere from 5 to 17 years worth of data to look at and determine if there are long-term effects.
And that's what I meant by "and in fact if we had yearly COVID vaccines those arguments would be moot there as well" - in a few years the "it's rushed" argument (which I understand to be a misunderstanding of the vaccine approval process - just because it usually takes a process two decades to complete doesn't means it's less trustworthy if it completes in a year under different circumstances) stops holding water.
It amazes me that people would be hesitant to get it and that there'd even be need to mandate it now. None of the same arguments can be made against the flu shot that can be made against the COVID vaccine (and in fact if we had yearly COVID vaccines those arguments would be moot there as well), but I'm sure we'd have a ton of vaccine deniers there, which really just proves it's ideology and feelings over any sort of real concern.