Perhaps on the individual level you might have a point, but this effect has been studied before. It was known that if you mandate it there would be increases in the amount of people/parents refusing other vaccines. This was a failure of public health across the board.
I think you inadvertently hit the nail on the head with that second paragraph. What you are leaving out is that it was pushed as if it was like all the others. "Most widely studied vaccine ever", "safest vaccine ever", "95% effective against COVID". It was presented as if it was too good to be true, but in the public space you weren't able to question it or you were belittled. We had some back and forth on the shot last summer if you remember, where you tried to come at me repeatedly from a moral high ground about why I should get the shot. That conversation was a microcosm of what was taking place all across the country. The irony in that conversation now is that I, a previously infected individual, was much more protected against infection and severe disease than you were, a vaccinated and not previously infected individual. We know now it isn't very effective against transmission, it wanes quickly, and the safety profile isn't nearly as safe as it was portrayed last summer.
I think the response to this builds off of my response immediately above. It's the behavior and lies that public health has pushed the past two years that are making the pushback to this going on the schedule so fierce. Trying to compare it to the flu shot being on the schedule is a terrible comparison because we've never treated the flu shot like people have been treating the COVID vaccine the past two years. How many people do you know have been refused entry into an establishment/restaurant/business/etc. because they didn't have a recent flu shot? How many kids do you know haven't been allowed to go to college/high school/grade school because they didn't have the flu shot? How many people do you know that were fired and ostracized because they didn't have the flu shot? It's a terrible comparison because the two have never been treated the same. Did you know that Yale/Harvard *still* currently require 2 shots + booster + bivalent booster to attend those schools? That is patently absurd, and anybody involved in those decisions should be fired and never allowed to work in public health again. However that mindset and attitude is still present in plenty of leftists across this nation. Just because they don't have the power/pubic will to do it in most places right now doesn't mean they won't do it when they get the chance.
As for your other point about misinformation about the vaccine, I agree that the absurd claims such as the man's you mention here only hurt things, and can't be blamed squarely on public health. However, public health's attitude and decisions on the vaccine have helped fuel many of those conspiracies. We now know a lot of side effects are more common than originally reported, but public health tried to squash anything that would portray the vaccine in a negative light. That helped to breed conspiracy theories, some of which are obviously going to be crazy.
The uproar is what it is because we've all witnessed the abhorrent behavior of public health over the last two years. We still see the vaccine mandates that are in place at some areas, and know that there's a lot on the left that would institute a vaccine mandate on kids if they are given the opportunity. Putting this on the vaccine schedule potentially gives them that opportunity, and I'll be surprised if we don't see some areas or states try to do that. Those living in red states don't really have to worry about it, but there's plenty of parents that don't want this vaccine for their kids that are living in areas where the local or state officials might try it. Unfortunately, the meme below is what many parents have dealt with for the past two years, and it's what my concern is for areas that try to mandate it. The CDC has been pushing the "fact" that they don't make mandates, so people shouldn't be upset at this, knowing full well that many mandates are made based solely on their recommendations.
Couldn't agree more on the virtue signalling being a very strong dopamine hit. It is what has kept the pro-mask and pro-vaccine mandate sides going for the last year now.
You are correct that most people have moved on, but there's still plenty in power that haven't moved on. It is still being pushed on people from positions of power. I've shielded myself as well as I can by working for companies that don't have any mandates, and choosing to live in a deeply red area. When I was looking to move earlier this year, I marked off many beautiful areas that would've normally been on my list to move to because they were blue areas. Not everybody has that option. I hope all of this continues to fade into oblivion, though I do think many responsible for some of the worst decisions should face a reckoning. They won't, but I can hope.