There is no way how THEY™ could have handled it right for the anti-vaxers.
If they would have rolled out the vaccine at some later point, so nobody could claim it was "rushed", the conspiracytards would have just said "Why wasn't the vaccine available earlier??!?!?! It's probably not going to do anything now anyway."
It's the worst performing set of vaccines to make it to market, perhaps ever. That alone isn't really enough to condemn it: It's a novel method of immunization, against a novel illness, and that's undoubtedly hard work to accomplish.
How to "handle it right" for anti-vaxers would've just been to show some humility.
"Hey everyone, we're working our hardest to get out a vaccine to help with COVID (because the political system hasn't been ready to actually handle a pandemic since what, at least 20 years?) and are in uncharted waters dealing with this. We've released a vaccine which we're reasonably confident will help, but here's the risks, and here's how they compare to your risks for contracting COVID."
That's all you have to do. If COVID vaccines came out like Flu shots and people had the option to grab them, it would've been no big deal. The issue is that COVID happened in an election year, which immediately meant it got hyped up into a world-ending plague by the MSM, which meant demand for a "cure" was all that public discourse was about. The system was in too deep to then quietly release vaccines for it, and once they'd made a big spectacle about the vaccines, all their credibility (because some people still consider legacy media credible) hinged on being absolutely correct.
"You won't catch it with the vaccines" turned to
"You probably won't catch it if exposed" to
"You won't get as ill when you catch it compared to the unvaccinated" to
"CDC is no longer recommending distinction between the vaccinated and unvaccinated."
And mind you, every step of the way, they demonized those that did not get vaccinated. Now with side effects from the vaccines becoming more apparent (Not because I think they are some global elite depopulation program, but because the medical industry fucks up sometimes when there's no rush at all, and COVID vaccines are orders of magnitude more hurried), there still can't be any honesty among those that pushed for vaccines. It's all inconclusive. Maybe it's something else: Pay it no mind.
The US medical industry unfortunately has a long history of being dishonest and/or just fucking up. It's run by humans, that happens. This time, though, two entire years were spent on backing a medical industry push that should've made anyone even slightly skeptical by nature raise an eyebrow, and the aftermath from 2 years of a pretty big mask-off moment for a lot of people (irony not intended) regarding how there's a major divide between those wary of an indisputably flawed system and those who are not only ardent supporters of it, but actively go so far as to wish death, or loss of livelihood, and are
willing to make moves to see that happen to those they deem political/socioeconomic undesirables. Ironically, putting all that effort into a nutrition education program and community gymnasiums probably would've saved more life-years than all the COVID protocols ever could, but that's just a tangent.
If the
best case scenario for your actions "Maybe it'll be like I didn't do anything," that's pretty bleak, NGL. I hope that's the case. I will take the snide remarks from vaccinated-and-boosted people on their third infection if it means the vaccines were basically just saline for efficacy. I don't want to see people maimed or constantly ill. I'm also aware, however, that even if only 1/100, or 1/1000 people suffer long term (which we have no way of knowing besides waiting for them to happen) injury, that's still millions of people that didn't need to go through that except for the fact too many untouchable egos were involved.
I'm not going to run around siphoning the vaccine out of people's lymph nodes like some giga-hyper-anti-vaxxer. I haven't gotten vaccinated, nor have my friends. Two got covid, the /fit/ one was sick for two days and the bigger one was sick for about a week, though most of that was just coughing and sinus draining. I just planned on waiting initially to see what the real-world results were. You know, sort of like how you're not supposed to buy the first model year of a new car generation. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), everyone that's wanted people vaccinated has basically done everything in their power to make it the most "sus" thing I've ever seen, so I'll probably be waiting a little longer. I'm not opposed to vaccines in principle or even COVID vaccines, I'm just opposed to all the bullshitting. If Company X launched a vaccine tomorrow and were totally transparent about it , I might not be stoked to go get it, but I'd at least consider it.