I assume nothing about you personally but you cannot deny that certain media personalities are using alarmism about vaccines to gain attention. Expressing your opinion is no different to me expressing mine. Neither of us are experts in the field of pandemics or epidemics but both of us are old enough to have seen and experienced things over our lifetimes.
In my case, living in Australia, which has the wonderful advantage of being a large island, we are very fortunate to have avoided many of the infectious diseases that are common elsewhere. For example we have no rabies but we do have tetanus. Children are routinely immunised for tetanus and it is not the problem today that it was in the past when one of my grandmother's brothers, a farm worker, died of lockjaw at the age of 22. Today that doesn't happen because of a vaccine. I used to get regular boosters for tetanus but today I am hardly at risk any more. However, if I did suffer a deep puncture wound in the garden I would seek treatment and a tetanus shot.
I do have a 'flu shot before each Winter and a pneumonia shot every five years. I have had a booster shot for shingles because I did have chicken pox as a child (same virus - herpes zoster). Shingles doesn't kill you but it is very painful and can cause damage to the nerves. My sister in law got it and it affected the sight in one eye. I requested the vaccine.
Before my little grandson was born I asked for a whooping cough booster to make sure I would not be a threat to him while he was too young to be immunised for this dreadful disease that can affect adults as well as babies. So yes, to answer your last sentence, sometimes I do get boosters for the sake of others but mostly the benefit is mine. When it comes to Covid the benefit is personal, to my family and on a larger plane, it benefits small businesses and the economy at large. Australia has now exceeded 80% double vaxxed for all people over 12 years and is rapidly approaching 90%. As a result, restrictions on businesses, entertainments and travel are being rolled back and by Christmas things will be pretty much back to normal without resulting in a surge of deaths and hospitalisations. For this I give credit to all the people who have complied with health orders and who have lined up for vaccines as soon as they became eligible. In particular, I am very grateful to the doctors, nurses, hospital administrators and public health officials who have had a very rough time of it for nearly two years. They are quite worn out. They do not deserve to be abused or threatened and they certainly do no deserve to have their motives questioned as if they are participating in a malignant conspiracy to harm us. What they ask of us is our co-operation and they will always have mine.
And no
@win231, I am not referring to you personally in any of the above. I am just talking about what I have seen and what I think about vaccination.