If you’re going to count “sickness” after getting the vaccine then you may as well count darn near everyone. The purpose of a vaccine is to stimulate some kind of immune response. Otherwise there’s no point, you won’t get antibodies. In the vast (vast vast) majority of cases, it’s nothing to write home about. Mild flulike symptoms for half a day is what I had after my second shot (I felt nothing at all after my first one).
Covid deaths were not over-counted. All the best research says they were undercounted. The “car crash” thing is a myth. But if you apply that erroneous logic to vaccines, yes, of course you can come up with a death toll from vaccines that is in the several thousands. (Still several orders of magnitude below deaths from actual Covid).
But as far as deaths I’m aware of that can be reliably, beyond a shadow of a doubt, pinpointed to the vaccine itself, I’m only coming up with 3.
Trump took the vaccine. So did all his family. So have all the right-wing media figures who are pushing antivaxx crap, probably. They are smart enough to know it is safe and works. They only push it because they are after clicks and views and antivaxxing is right-wingers’ current fixation of the day.
The antivaxx thing is a losing battle. It’s such a totally losing battle that Trump ought to get out there and change the messaging on this, because it’s only killing his own voters at this point. It’s not just good for the country — it’s in his own narrow self-interest to do this!
Why hasn’t he? When he was the guy who did Operation Warp Speed in the first place? Who knows. Perhaps his contempt for his own voters really does know no bounds.
