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Harrow said..
That's an easy statement to make after the event for anyone who's life hasn't been ruined by the vaccine, but a single person's experience is certainly not an indicator of the big picture. The article points out two rather significant poll results... only 35% saying they were vaccinated and would do the same again, while not a single person regretted not getting vaccinated. A survey of 50,000 people is a reasonable sample size, so it does raise the question of why so few people would do it again. Is there underreporting of the negative health effects the vaccine has had on people? I wonder what other reasons could be behind the poll result?
I am going to try and argue on logic alone, so please don't ascribe any bias to my reasoning. For this post at least.
With anything risky, and we will assume a new vaccine is a risk, surely people will often regret taking it? Even if there is no negative outcome for each individual, they will worry about the uncertainty of effects and any long term issues that may or may not happen.
Clearly the people that have negative outcomes will regret taking it. People that have friends or family that have had negative outcomes will probably regret taking it.
It's one of those things where you cannot see the alternative, i.e. had you not had the vaccine would the virus have given you a negative outcome at least as bad as taking the vaccine?
If we swing to the complete opposite pole, the people that died from the virus and MAY have been saved by a vaccine would probably have regretted NOT taking the vaccine, but clearly they aren't voting are they?
Oh yeah, I also forgot about the bias that comes about from wanting to respond to something. Like Internet reviews, people are far more likely to want to respond if they have a strong feeling one way or the other about something. If they have a nuetral feeling about something, are they likely to respond to a survey? I know in this case I kept getting pages on 'news' suggesting I take part in the survey. I didn't even though I would have provided a response that said I was happy to take the vaccine and had no regrets.
I always worry when people pop up after an event and say 'I would have done this' or 'you should have done that'. It was (is?) a difficult time and new to everyone so you cannot interpret it as if it was.
For those that disagree with that point, I got the lotto numbers wrong for the last draw. I can now see what they should have been.
What numbers should I use for the next draw?