I agree that those conspiracy theories are just bulls*it, but you can’t deny that there may be some legitimate concerns about the vaccines effectiveness or possible side effects.
I don’t think there’s much room for legitimate concern around the effectiveness of the US vaccines. Certainly the Chinese vaccines are garbage and I’m not at all confident about the Russian vaccine at this point, but there is a mountain of evidence that the American vaccines work wonders with all known variants. 99.2% of the COVID-19 deaths in the US in May were unvaccinated people.
I do understand there being concerns around vaccine side effects. Every medicine has side effects. Tylenol has side effects, but it’s considered extremely safe. We do know of some actual side effects that are risks with these vaccines. The two mRNA vaccines have a low risk of anaphylaxis with some people. They can also cause Myocarditis in rare cases, mostly among young males. The J&J vaccine has a known risk of blood clots in girls and women of child-bearing age. All of these are very rare, but the risks do exist. It’s possible there are other very rare side effects that are yet to be identified.
It’s worth noting that when we talk about them being “rare”, we’re talking about anywhere from 1 in 90,000 to 1 in a million. And when we talk about Myocarditis, that risk is around 11 per million versus 23,000 per million with COVID-19 infection, so if Myocarditis is a concern, you’re far better off with the vaccine. But I do understand concern about possible risk of side effects.