The information in this article should be accurate but comes from external (while reputible) sources. It's possible I made a mistake, in which case i'll be happy for someone to correct it. Given that this write up is not peer reviewed please consider this opinion.
The COVID Case fatality rate is 2%, ages 20-29 account for the vast majority of covid cases. This rate is higher in older individuals (4x in 30-39, 370x in 85+) (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investigations-discovery/hospitalization-death-by-age.html)
Estimates think about 1/10 cases are not reported (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7239078/), so overall risk of death by covid living your day to day life is probably 1/10 the case fatality or 0.2%.
Of those who are infected with covid (by the case rate, not the overall rate), 7 to 18% will have "long COVID", 1/3 of those will have 'life-changing' effects. (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03495-2). Correcting for non-reported covid and we find the overall risk of life-changing effects from covid is about 0.4%.
Thus your general risk of not being alive or well because of covid is 0.6%.
As reported to the CDC (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html)
- Anaphylaxis (severe alergic reaction) happened in 2 to 5 per million people in US or 0.0005%.
- This is scary but temporary and quickly resolved with the help of epinephrine (which all covid vaccination facilities have ready).
- Myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) happened in 1949 (1071 confirmed) in total, out of 197 million people who so-far got the vaccine, that's a rate of 0.001% in worst case (or 0.002% in israel).
- The general incidence rate of myocarditis (generally after getting a random virus like a cold) is 10 to 22 per 100,000 or 0.01% (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053077020300227) notably, this is 10x higher than the rate in people who received the vaccine. Myocarditis is more of a concern for people who get COVID, in fact 0.146% of covid cases (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7035e5.htm). Because it's so rare, data is hard to come by but in israel, of 54 cases 76% were mild, 2 died, 1 of unknown cause and another because of the condition (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2110737). i.e. 3% * 0.002% = bad case of myocarditis 0.000006% but i'll just use 0.002% because it still wouldn't matter.
The number of deaths reported after vaccine, not necessarily due to vaccine was 0.0022%. Only 6 deaths were ever actually confirmed to be due to J&J's vaccine, a risk of 0.0000003%.
Even if all reported deaths were caused by the vaccine (which is most certainly not the case, the true risk is likely in the 0.00001% range), the risk of death due to covid remains 100x worse.
(https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#covidnet-hospitalizations-vaccination&data-dropdown-covidnet-vaccinerates-raw-data=18-49%20yr) This tracker shows hospitalization rates in fully vaccinated vs unvaccinated people. It's expected that the hospitalization rate difference is somewhat correlated with the risk of death but since it's so low in vaccinated persons it's hard to find data for vaccinated persons.
In any case, about 11% of patients admitted to the hospital will die (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7920817/) but there isn't enough data on those hospitalized with the vaccine. we'll assume it doesn't matter but evidence suggests it does.
As of now it's 1 per 100,000 people for vaccinated vs 15 per 100,000 people for unvaccinated. Thats 15x higher chance to end up in the hospital. Again will consider the worst case, that this directly translates to death, in other words your general risk goes from 0.6% / 15 down to 0.04% (worst case, in reality risk of death is probably far less but there is no data).
- 0.6% of unvaccinated people will not be alive and well because of covid
- 0.0422% if your vaccinated in the worst case
- 0.04% will not be alive and well because of covid in spite of vaccination + 0.0022% (worst case, but in in reality 0.000001%) will not be alive and well because of the vaccine
0.0022% worst case risk is clearly worth it for a 14x reduction in the chance that you end up in the hospital from covid.
0.000001%, the true probable risk is certainly worth it for the probable 50x reduction in the chance that you end up dying or end up with life-changing issues.
The vaccine is not without risk, and COVID is still capable of killing you with or without it but the vaccination risks are insignificant compared to the risk of COVID.
Pre covid, in the US, every year we get 176.1 per 100,000 people in the 25-34 age range for males or 0.2% per year (https://www.statista.com/statistics/241572/death-rate-by-age-and-sex-in-the-us/). Risk of dying from covid is in a similar order of magnitude, adding on to your risk of death (since covid wasn't a thing in the past). 0.8% per year you'll be dead or disabled without the vaccine, 0.2422% if you have the vaccine.