think we need to be honest about what vaccination does and what it doesn't do. Once we acknowledge that vaccines do not prevent infection or prevent those infected from spreading the virus then it really becomes a discussion of tradeoffs.
Coronavirus has never been about case counts. It's all about the load on the healthcare system (there's a time-varying correlation between case counts and hospital loading).
I'm not interested in denying care to the unvaccinated, and I also want to be sure that people who need to get hernia surgeries or whatever are able to get those in a timely manner (in addition to not compromising on care for more serious conditions). Already my closest Urgent Care is closed, since they are having to devote resources elsewhere in the system. That's not fair to vaccinated individuals (or anyone!).
So, that leaves us little choice. Vaccination is required. What is extremely clear is that it is extremely effective at keeping people out of the hospital, against all variants.
Regarding protection of prior infection against future infection, there's a mix of evidence out there, but since the mRNA vaccines are essentially zero risk, clearly vaccination is indicated in the case of prior infection, assuming some delay (> 3 months) since infection. By stacking natural immunity from a full course of vaccination onto infection-acquired immunity, that provides some of the strongest possible protection (shown time and time again), better than a boosted vaccine, and that's obviously what is needed right now. There's ample evidence out there for this now. There's not really anything to debate - in all flowcharts, vaccination is the best course of action both for individuals and for society.
The tradeoffs of vaccination point to a very clear cut decision to get vaccinated if you are over 50, those tradeoffs are much less obvious if you are under 18.
I'm not aware of any risks not addressed by NSAIDs posed by the mRNA vaccines in young people (notwithstanding allergies to the ingredients, etc., which are fairly well understood at this point so we can exclude those children from this discussion). Is there any serious risk from mRNA vaccines to youth? I think there is not. Only rare cases of mild myocarditis, which is easily resolved.
until the side effects have been studied for more time.
What are you expecting to see? Based on all historical precedent, we know that there will be no long term consequences.
There has never been in history a vaccine with long term effects that were not known immediately.
. This is not a completely unreasonable position for some parents to take so stop shaming them for it because it isn't helping.
I think when armed with factual information, it's an unreasonable position. This is a position based on misinformation, unfortunately.
there is not enough research and guidance on prophylactic (in addition to vaccine of course) and early treatment for covid.
There's been a great deal of research on this (it was well known that vaccines were going to take a while so this is what they looked at in the meantime!!!). Other than losing a tremendous amount of weight, getting to "normal weight" (which is scientifically proven to be essentially impossible, which is hard for me to believe but it seems to be true), my understanding is that there's very little to be done in terms of prophylactic care. You can help around the edges by not being deficient in Vitamin D or C or whatever, but it's not likely a significant help, otherwise it would be very well publicized at this point.
Regarding early treatment - I think there's a very well established standard of care at this time (early intervention remains critically important as has been well known from the first few months). Unfortunately with overwhelmed hospitals it's likely hard for best known outpatient treatment regimens to be followed for every individual, and of course mAbs that work are in short supply.
No one is trying to hide information here! No magic bullets exist at the current time.
Natural immunity is the best bet. Get vaccinated & boosted; get your natural immunity. It's a 90% solution at least, and these other prophylactics & early treatments are perhaps going to gain another 1-2% (just a guess).
Overall, this is really not a complicated picture. KISS principle is in full effect.