"Traditional vaccines" are by no means free of side effects. The smallpox vaccine is a live vaccine and causes much more severe side effects than mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, including myocarditis [1]. This risk was accepted since smallpox is incredibly dangerous.
Inactivated vaccines appear to be quite ineffective against severe COVID and I have read that experts are doubtful about long-term protection against severe cases as well.
One alternative might be recombinant protein vaccines like the one from Novavax. This one was just approved in the EU and apparently the phase-3 trial went well. Of course, rare side effects (like myocarditis in mRNA vaccines) can only be measured once at least a few million people have been vaccinated. Also the longevity of the protection is still unknown.
> This risk was accepted since smallpox is incredibly dangerous.
In particular, it was way more dangerous than COVID is. To figure out an acceptable level of side effects, wouldn't it be better to compare COVID to other diseases of a similar danger level?
I read myocarditis is partly caused by the mechanisms of producing the spike protein.
Can't we just go back to traditional vaccines?