The left took a hard stance in support of forcing COVID-19 vaccines based on mRNA technology (i.e. Pfizer's, Moderna's, etc.) on everyone, so now coronavirus (i

The left took a hard stance in support of forcing COVID-19 vaccines based on mRNA technology (i.e. Pfizer's, Moderna's, etc.) on everyone, so now coronavirus (i.e. flu) vaccines are a left/right issue. My anecdotal evidence from the last 5 years is that I haven't seen a COVID-19 vaccine affect the outcome in individuals under 70 years old. I chose not to vaccinate myself, because I had the option of staying home and not contacting anyone for long lengths of time. Other family members made the choice to vaccinate. The severity of the disease progression between us was most strongly correlated with age, vaccination status didn't seem to play a role. First time I got COVID, I had to visit the hospital. Second time, a year later, I barely got a fever and didn't even need to take time off (obviously I stayed home!). Vaccinated family members had the same experience. The mRNA COVID-19 vaccine did not offer protection anywhere close to having had previous infection among the people I know. That said, THIS IS NOT A STATEMENT FOR OR AGAINST mRNA VACCINES! TRUST YOUR DOCTOR! What I want to point out, is that such anecdotal experiences exist and I expect a lot of people have had the same experience, which would lead them to thinking they were tricked or forced by the Democratic administration to get vaccinated not for their benefit, but for the monetary profit of "Big Pharma". Absent a science-based education, a lot of people do not have the tools to judge the validity of their observations. The entire messaging from the Biden administration during COVID was an abject PR disaster. Censoring people who had misgivings for the vaccine, or wanted to discuss implications of statistics, was also not helpful[1]. It erased trust in vaccines in general, erased trust in the Democratic party, erased trust in media, etc. I expect that for decades to come this event will be studied in management classes with workshops for "How would you have handled it better?" To be fair, I have no idea how it could have been handled better given the information at the time, but the gamble they took was severely miscalculated. I don't see how it could have been handled any worse. [1] As an aside, I see a similar censorship-led effect amongst youth who say "The Holocaust didn't happen!" simply because questioning it leads to their post getting deleted and banned. It doesn't matter whether the arguments they want to discuss are in any way valid or absolutely fucking stupid - the fact they're getting censored is a signal that gets interpreted as "they are trying to hide the truth!". Ultimately I think we need to tolerate a certain amount of misinformation, hate speech, and so on online, so that new people can see that yes - this thing was asked, it is a valid question, but it is absolutely wrong, because so and so. Too many of the once fully integrated communities online have become quite isolationist. People end up in echo chambers and cults, leading to the above described effects.