It depends on the poster's age group. If they're not elderly or obese, getting the virus is no more dangerous than commuting to work daily or giving birth, which wouldn't normally be described as a "substantial risk".
Giving birth doesn't risk killing others and commuting to work by driving requires a license given the risk of killing others.
If you want to risk your own life in a way that doesn't risk other's, fine by me.
But don't equate that to an activity that also risks the lives of others.
If you want to get natural immunity without risking the lives of others, I could imagine a service where you quarantine at home after intentionally being infected with the disease, but even then, there is the negative externality that a certain percentage of young people will need medical care, resulting in increased risk of spread and reduction of healthcare capacity.
When the person I was responding to said "Not taking the vaccine is a substantial risk", I believe they were referring to the risk to the person not taking the vaccine.
That aside, driving a car, even with a license, is a non-trivial risk to others, possibly the greatest chance the average person has of killing somebody, so I don't see how they're not comparable. Moreover air pollution kills seven million people worldwide each year, which everyone contributes to when they drive, and that's way more than covid19's killed.
You're right, but I'm not really convinced that a vaccine with a few months of safety testing behind it is a substantially larger risk. If I've gotta take a small but nonzero risk either way, I might as well pick the one with prosocial advantages.
1) You're talking about risk of death, right? Have you met one of the many people with "long haul" symptoms? I really don't want that! 2) You did not include the risk of sickening friends, family, and those around you.
I'm not discouraging people from "taking vaccines" in general. My 2 year old daughter is fully vaccinated. I'm just indicating that in the current scenario, where the vaccines on offer haven't undergone any longitudinal trails is extremely unusual and the usual calculus where people may weigh up the balance of risk does not apply.
