Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've read that up to 76% of the medical professional in some EU countries are refusing the vaccine, so I wonder why they do that if the science is so valid. Antivaxx craze and fake news network effects can only explain so much.
Not sure where this number is from. One of the main challenges of vaccine takeup in France and Germany (including health staff) is more about having a preference for the higher efficacy vaccines over the AstraZenica. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56242617
From what I've read, all of the vaccines approved for emergency use so far in the US and EU stop 100% or close to it of severe cases and hospitalizations. Vaccinated people who get COVID get a case that is no worse than a mild to moderate seasonal flu.
The high efficacy vaccines reduces your chances of getting COVID at all quite a bit more than the ones with lesser efficacy.
For someone like me, who works at home and only goes out every so often for groceries, if I get COVID there is a very good chance I'll notice symptoms before I would next go out, and so can quarantine myself and not spread it.
My main concern, then, is ensuring that if I do catch it I get at most a mild case. Any of the vaccines will do that for me, so for me it makes the most sense to take the first one offered to me.
For health staff, they won't be working at home. If they get COVID they might have plenty of chances to spread it in the couple of days or so it takes to start showing symptoms. And the people they will be spreading it to, besides other health workers, will include people who are already weakened from whatever they have come to the doctor or hospital to have treated.
So for health staff we need more than just turning their cases mild. We want to stop them from getting it in the first place. Hence, they should be getting the high efficacy vaccines.