When pressed a bit it seems that the concern here is that they are trying for a second child and are afraid of becoming infertile due to the jab. Though it might be just a smoke screen to drop the subject.
I am not good with emotional appeal arguments, and this seems like pure facts might not be enough. So maybe suggest emotional argument angle?
I probably have one shot at trying to convince them to vaccinate so I am looking for possible any possible advice.
PS
Some talking points I am trying to use:
I have read papers on pregnancies and COVID vaccine - surprise nothing found.
Long term effects of vaccines would already show up
Delta and future variants are more likely to infect them even when self isolating
Covid death rates and Covid long term issues vs unknown mystery long term side effects of vaccine.
My brother won’t get vaccinated either. His life, his choice, not my business.
However be careful it may backfire because if he is healthy then his odds of dying of covid will be way less than his odds of dying in a car crash this year.
It sucks. It was a mistake to focus the public attention on deaths, and not on the long term effects of surviving an infection.
> "jeeze. that sounds really scary"
> "oy. yea. I'd be quite torn."
The second best emotional argument is just to go fishing or on a hike with him.
Well, the FDA's site for Comitarny says they don't know the potential longterm outcomes associated some side effects and are requiring Pfizer to perform post marketing studies on it. So it's reasonable to question that. Some autoimmune conditions can take years to manifest too. Like you said, you have to weigh the known/unknown risks of covid with the known/unknown risks of the vaccine. Different people will weigh those differently.
https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/qa-comirnaty-co...
The things that I would have an issue with are:
1. Is there an effective treatment that's less risky than the vaccine (e.g. Ivermectin)? 2. Can we safely assume that adverse effects of the vaccines have been properly tracked and investigated since vaccinations began? 3. Is there any historical precedent for vaccine side effects becoming known after this time period (since Covid vaccinations began)?
A rational person will get vaccinated if you can settle these questions in favor of the vaccines. Note, I'm assuming that the person takes the threat of getting covid seriously. There's a common misconception that everyone who doesn't want to get vaccinated thinks that it's all a big joke and covid is no worse than the flu. This is not true. Lots of vaccine-hesitant people take covid seriously.
I have chosen to skip all that. Vaccinated family may come visit us, non-vaccinated cannot. I don't like the situation, but I'm just going to set my own boundaries vs. starting family fights.
If you only have one shot, forget about it.
I suppose you could try showing them some of the hundreds of news articles about vaccine deniers who died begging for the vaccine, or the testimony of people who survived with destroyed bodies, like this guy:
https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/they-sa...
But I doubt you're going to emotion them out of it. They picked the "long term effects" argument because it's foolproof. Twenty years from now they'll still be able to use the same argument. Their medicine cabinet is full of drugs introduced in the last 20 years, but they'll have plenty of reasons to claim that this kind of medicine is different so they're not really being inconsistent about it.
The only real argument you have is your presence. Breakthrough cases are a thing, and even though they're unlikely to hospitalize you, you risk transferring it to somebody else -- a child under 12, a person with a suppressed immune system, somebody with an allergy to the vaccine. So you can't see them as long as they're taking the risk of infecting you.
But that argument is only meaningful if you stick to it. Are you willing to take that hit? Especially given that it's unlikely to work, and you'll have to follow through.
Because it's not really about long-term effects. It's about his ego and ideology. He's dedicated to the notion that COVID isn't so bad and walking that back would be a huge blow to his sense of self. Even more, I bet, than losing a brother.
Covid19 is pretty much gob standard coronavirus which which there are already four which commonly infect humans. One of which uses the same receptor even. Covid doesn't have any weird tricks. Other than no one has any immunity to it, and it can cause systemic infections. Because it uses the ACE2 receptor which are found in a lot of organs and tissues.
The vaccines on the other hand are also gob standard vaccines. So there isn't any reason either to expect any of them to cause unusual problems that haven't been seen before. And none of the usual problems have appeared.
The real thing here is the choice really isn't vaccine or no vaccine. It's you get vaccine or you get covid. The risk from the vaccine if you can call it that is orders of magnitude less than getting covid.
Another consideration is while the vaccines don't show any effect on fertility or pregnancy, covid absolutely shows increased morbidity and mortality in pregnant women.
Whatever you do, don't guilt or shame them. Antivax stems from distrust, and emotionally manipulating people makes the distrust worse.
These side effects can happen with covid too. Without vaccine you may have them for many years instead of a few days to weeks.
Then there's the vaccine itself, I'd rather have part of the virus than the entire thing.
Regarding emotional arguments: You can't convince an atheist to be a christian (or vice versa) in one hour. This would only destroy your relationship.
1) talk with him so that he knows I care and that my only goal is to do what is best for him.
2) Compare the vacine to covid. We don't know the long term effects of either, but we do know people end up in hospitals/morgues for covid, but not for the vaccine. The ability to have and/or care for future offsprings when you are dead are not good.
Your vaccine protects you so what are you worried about?
The window is closing, what makes more sense? The powers that be want to reduce population by getting rid of the obedient shot takers or would they prefer getting rid of the skofflaw antivaxxers..