* vaccine benefits are higher than the risks for most people. Young people aren't being given AZ/Janssen which are the most concerning ones regarding coagulation problems etc. Pfizer/Moderna are essentially safe with the best results.
* vaccine does NOT stop you from contracting covid or giving it to others. what it does is mitigate the possibility of severe symptoms. In the Netherlands where the vaccination process is very advanced, there have been case spikes over the past few weeks but with no significant increase in deaths .
* in my personal opinion, you should still wear masks in public places, but up to you. KN-95 masks offer decent protection, surgical masks are more to protect others, but if everyone is masked up in one location, you should be fine. Cloth masks are not good enough.
Overall it's a risk/benefit situation that we're looking at here. You are entitled to be concerned with the vaccine's long term effects, since it's clear that a lot of the steps usually taken to implement a new vaccine haven't been taken here due to time constraints. But Covid's long term effects are nothing to laugh about either, just google 'long covid' and you will see my point. I personally see it as a necessary risk, and hope that over the next few years the research will continue so we reach a point where the vaccine is safer and more effective than it is now.