Context: Alex is being quite tendentious on both sides of this equation. TLDR: The main problem is comparing the odds of DEATH with the odds of fatigue and soreness for a day.

As for deaths under 40, there have been 178 such deaths in Italy, which implies a much higher death rate of 1/27,000 if ~20% of the country was infected. https://www.epicentro.iss.it/en/coronavirus/bollettino/Report-COVID-2019_9_december_2020.pdf

Alex puts a lot of weight on the word “healthy,” because the Italian statistics say that only 20 of the Italian COVID deaths under age 40 had no pre-existing conditions (although there was no data about 31 of the deaths, which Alex ignores).

What are these pre-existing conditions? The most common were diabetes and obesity. Those are pretty damn common! CDC pegs obesity in Americans between 20 and 29 years old at 40%. By Alex’s gerrymandering, nearly half of young adults aren’t “healthy.” https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html.

In any event, an important reason to take the vaccine is prevent the spread to *others*, and the Moderna vaccine appears to do that, crushing even asymptomatic acquisition of the virus about two weeks after the first dose. https://www.fda.gov/media/144434/download

It is true that the Moderna vaccine has more side effects than the Pfizer vaccine, especially in the second dose, and people should be aware of it. This vaccine will likely cause you fatigue, headache, muscle pain (myalgia), which are by far the most common Grade 3 side effects.

But what are “severe” Grade 3 events? They don’t require hospitalization, it just means they interfere with daily life. People should probably plan to take a sick day on the second shot. https://twitter.com/dfreedman7/status/1339785862142455808

These common side effects do not require hospitalization. They doesn’t last long, and they occur about as frequently as some other approved vaccines (although much more frequently than the annual flu shot). https://twitter.com/JesseOSheaMD/status/1339384771160535040

And what are the benefits? Pretty striking. There were—zero!—cases of severe COVID-19 among participates who took even one dose, compared to 9 hospitalizations and 1 death due to COVID-19 in the control group. https://twitter.com/DrLeanaWen/status/1338847204023410688