If you don’t get vaccinated, you’ll get infected
Since the highly contagious delta variant has determined the pandemic, one thing is clear with a high degree of probability: anyone who does not get vaccinated will become infected with Sars-CoV-2. According to experts, herd immunity that also protects the unvaccinated can no longer be expected with this viral mutation.
Even if most people, especially younger ones, survive a Covid-19 illness well, without vaccination they run the risk of becoming severely ill, suffering sequelae such as Long Covid – or even dying.
Vaccination significantly reduces these risks. Of course, like all effective medical interventions, it comes with its own risk. But this is so small compared to the benefits that vaccination makes sense even for young people, who very rarely develop severe covid-19.
Waiting for better mutant protection
If at some point the protection provided by the current vaccinations is no longer sufficient, this can be compensated for by supplementary vaccinations. Tests are already underway to find out how.
Concern about long-term vaccine damage
Many people worry that years after a vaccination, previously unknown long-term damage could occur. In fact, however, most side effects – including severe ones – occur in the first few days after a vaccination, only occasionally after weeks and extremely rarely after a few months.
It is therefore extremely unlikely that long-term damage from the vaccination will not appear until years later. This is also because vaccines – unlike many drugs – are not given permanently.
The swine flu vaccine issue
However, very rare side effects often only become apparent after a longer period of time. This was the case with the swine flu vaccine Pandemrix, and it still unsettles people today. In rare cases, children developed the autoimmune disease narcolepsy after receiving the vaccine. This actually only came to light a good year after the vaccine was introduced.
What else you need to know: Even unvaccinated people who actually got swine flu were more likely to develop narcolepsy, as studies from China showed. So there would have been more cases of narcolepsy even without the swine flu vaccine, just because of the swine flu virus.
Rare side effects are noticed earlier with millions of vaccinations
And one more aspect should not be forgotten: With vaccines, the word long-term damage refers less to the time after which a side effect actually occurs than to the time at which it becomes apparent. And, of course, the more people who have received the vaccine in question, the more likely this is to happen.
Thus, late long-term vaccine damage is once again much less likely with the Corona vaccines than with other vaccination campaigns. This is because never before has a vaccine been given so quickly to so many people worldwide. This means that even rare, severe side effects are noticed much more quickly in the current situation.
Why waiting is dangerous
The risks of infection are known
The risks of Sars-CoV-2 infection have now been largely explored. In contrast, there is no evidence that the Corona vaccines are more likely to pose serious risks. Thus, the risk-benefit balance is overwhelmingly in favor of vaccinating most people.
Think long-covid too!
There is also the risk of long-covid syndrome, with often severe, long-term and perhaps permanent damage. This danger does not only exist for severely ill persons. Post-covid syndrome can also develop after mild courses of the disease – at any age.
Non-vaccination prolongs the pandemic
What has been said so far relates to personal health risk. However, a reluctance to vaccinate also means that the pandemic loses its force more slowly. This means that more people fall ill and die. In addition, the danger is fueled that mutations will also arise in this country and more dangerous variants will spread from other countries.
