I’m vaccine hesitant. Help me understand

It can be hard to make an informed decision if you are not science-geared mentally. Nobody understands fully every topic they make decisions about, yet one has to make decisions.

I'm also not a scientist but I think I can grasp science concepts relatively well. Broadly speaking, all drugs have risks, and side effects, even the most common ones. Re. the vaccines, they have overall low risk of side effects. Your GP will be able to tell if you have a preexisting condition that puts you at risk. These vaccines don't interact with your hormones so they shouldn't affect your fertility, however, they may interfere with a developing baby if you are pregnant so again if this is the case, ask to your GP- usually they recommend Pfizer for pregnant women.

The component of these vaccines will be eliminated from your body completely in about two weeks, leaving you with your own antibodies ready to deal with a Covid infection if you come across one. Vaccines don't interact with your DNA. Vaccines have a protein which mimics the structure and behaviour of a Covid spike protein.

A covid cell has spike proteins on its outer surface, and uses them to latch onto your body cells and penetrate them. The virus takes hold of your cell and uses it to make copies of itself, damaging you in the process.

The vaccine has only the spike protein, not the rest of the virus. So it will only "hit" at some of your cells, without actually destroying them or reproducing itself. Because it's still attacking your cells, your immune system will develop defenses against the spike, suffering no damage. The defense (the antibodies) will remain in your system for about six months, after which your body gradually stops producing them.

Clots: the immune response to the spike protein may cause blood clotting of some degree. This depends a lot on your individual blood environment- everybody is different. For most people, the clots don't happen or if they do, they're too small to cause a nuisance. Your GP will let you know if you have a preexisting condition that makes this a problem.

Bear in mind that if you catch covid, the virus will also cause the same reaction in your blood, with the aggravant that the virus reproduces and fast, so your clots will also increase in severity. In other words, more protein in your blood, more chance of clots. The vaccine, having a limited amount of spike and not reproducing itself, is much safer than catching covid any time.

Long term side effects: covid affects people differently, and yes, usually people survive it. What is unpredictable are the side effects. Because the virus attacks certain parts of your body more than others (lungs, olfactory nerve, liver, etc) some of the damage is permanent - "long covid" sequels. Some people shrug it off as if nothing, others keep scars in their lungs for the rest of their lives, affecting their quality of breathing. There is a sub on reddit for long covid you may find interesting.

Long term side effects for the vaccine: highly unlikely considering our current level of technology. The vaccine does its job and is out in 2 weeks. As far as the current science tells us, none of the components in the vaccine are meant to stay or interact with you long term. In the past, say 20 or 30 years ago, some vaccines had heavy metals in them which occasionally caused problems in people if there was a problem in the vax manufacturing process (it would happen in some batches, accidentally). This was rare then, and is no longer the case. Things have changed. As for covid vax potential long term effects I have never read any theories of what could happen, but if you have found any info about this please feel free to share. You may have an allergic reaction to a vaccine component but you will likely find out immediately, that's why they make you wait for 15 minutes after the shot. And yes, they also screen for potential allergy tell-tales before vaccinating just in case.

I think that's the gist of it all. Personally I would recommend the vaccine, since the potential risks of covid are well known and it's a virus that spread incredibly fast.

/r/CoronavirusDownunder Thread