Irish now suspend Astra Zeneca vaccine

[Chris_Boro]

Sometimes a batch of an item doesn't come out like it's supposed to, has a possible contaminant or the wrong quantity of ingredients.

It happens all the time, but when something as big has the covid vaccine has a potential issue with a certain group then caution is well advised, ignoring a possible cause of illness or death, if proven would be an outrage.

Blaming the EU for this is ridiculous, I would hope that if something similar happens here, we would do the same while investigations take place.

 

[HolgateCorner]

So what do you do then? Decide there's a risk, suspend the vaccine and keep everyone locked down for longer - or at more risk from Covid.

Or - decide that the risk is worth taking, continue vaccinating the public and ease the lockdown.

No matter what you decide, some people will think it's the wrong decision. The lockdown is causing all sorts of problems in itself so probably the easier choice is to keep vaccinating.

>20k people in the UK have died since being vaccinated. How many of those died because of the vaccine? Probably a few but maybe more would have died if millions hadn't been vaccinated already?

I think you should look carefully when concerns are raised so that you can make improvements or warn susceptible people, I don’t think this is a difficult conclusion to come to, you can’t just ignore it because you are sick of being locked down. Or maybe you can?

 

[Soutra]

I think you should look carefully when concerns are raised so that you can make improvements or warn susceptible people, I don’t think this is a difficult conclusion to come to, you can’t just ignore it because you are sick of being locked down. Or maybe you can?

Would you stop, or suspend the vaccination program while someone "looks carefully" at the data to establish whether there are improvement that could be made to the vaccine? How long would it take to warn "susceptible people"? How many missed appointments would that cause? How many people who are "susceptible" might die of Covid because they weren't vaccinated? How many people who might have been vaccinated might develop Covid because their vaccination was delayed?

There's no right answer, I think there's only least worst options.

 

[Liamo]

I disagree with that bicycle helmet comparison, it’s nothing like having a vaccination.

You clearly think the blood clots thing is scaremongering and misinformation?

No, I don't think it's scaremongering or misinformation, I think it's simply a misinterpretation of the data.

I agree with the MHRA, EMA and WHO (bodies with massive, massive experience in assessing vaccine safety) who say unanimously that the incidence of these problems is no higher than in the general population, that there is no evidence the cases are linked to the vaccine and that the vaccine remains safe to use.

Also, it's irrelevant whether wearing a bicycle helmet is like taking a vaccine (though I'd say they are alike in being measures that are intended to reduce the risk of an adverse outcome) the main point is in assessing the relative risks shown by the statistics and drawing a conclusion as to whether the thing being looked at improves or reduces a person's overall chances of remaining unharmed.

 

[HolgateCorner]

Would you stop, or suspend the vaccination program while someone "looks carefully" at the data to establish whether there are improvement that could be made to the vaccine? How long would it take to warn "susceptible people"? How many missed appointments would that cause? How many people who are "susceptible" might die of Covid because they weren't vaccinated? How many people who might have been vaccinated might develop Covid because their vaccination was delayed?

There's no right answer, I think there's only least worst options.

No, I don't think it's scaremongering or misinformation, I think it's simply a misinterpretation of the data.

I agree with the MHRA, EMA and WHO (bodies with massive, massive experience in assessing vaccine safety) who say unanimously that the incidence of these problems is no higher than in the general population, that there is no evidence the cases are linked to the vaccine and that the vaccine remains safe to use.

Also, it's irrelevant whether wearing a bicycle helmet is like taking a vaccine (though I'd say they are alike in being measures that are intended to reduce the risk of an adverse outcome) the main point is in assessing the relative risks shown by the statistics and drawing a conclusion as to whether the thing being looked at improves or reduces a person's overall chances of remaining unharmed.

Not wanting to bang on about this but just looking at one newspaper website, something like 7 countries have now paused the use of the vaccine pending further investigation.

I do accept the ‘greater good’ argument and all that but there is a difference between naturally catching a virus which might cause harm and injecting something into your body that you know might cause serious harm.

I don’t think we should be ‘cavalier‘ with it and ignore potential problems because it doesn’t suit our objectives.

 

[Lifelonfaninexile]

Not wanting to bang on about this but just looking at one newspaper website, something like 7 countries have now paused the use of the vaccine pending further investigation.

I do accept the ‘greater good’ argument and all that but there is a difference between naturally catching a virus which might cause harm and injecting something into your body that you know might cause serious harm.

I don’t think we should be ‘cavalier‘ with it and ignore potential problems because it doesn’t suit our objectives.

A couple of years ago I had a life threatening blood clot, so I am regarded at risk in that sense.
Two weeks ago, before these suspicions were public knowledge I received my first covid jab, Astra Zenica.
Had I been in possession of the current information I would have requested an alternative vaccine and been prepared to delay. I was never given the option.

 

[Decent_Left]

2 points Lifelon

1/ Your Risk of a clot is lower post vaccine than just walking around everyday enjoying life

2/ Pfizer is the only alternative in the UK right now and it currently offers the same risk post vaccination of having a clot - which again is lower than the total population.

Other alternatives are a while away, in the meantime you stand a greater chance of catching Covid and dying than you do of taking either of the 2 current vaccines and not developing a clot, but if you did you would still stand a lesser chance of dying from the clot.

 

[Matt]

A couple of years ago I had a life threatening blood clot, so I am regarded at risk in that sense.
Two weeks ago, before these suspicions were public knowledge I received my first covid jab, Astra Zenica.
Had I been in possession of the current information I would have requested an alternative vaccine and been prepared to delay. I was never given the option.

You do realise that recipients of BOTH of the vaccines in use in the UK have had people develop blood clots (at the same kind of level as you would expect in the general population at any given time) - so there isn't an alternative vaccine you could have had?

As has been said many many times the amount of people having these complications after having the vaccine is the same number of people that you would expect to have them (based on historical data) - there will also have been a number of people dieing after having the vaccine but that doesn't mean the vaccine killed them. Every Easter people die not long after eating Easter eggs, but it doesn't mean that Cadburys release defective chocolate every spring... it just means that people die.

I agree that we should be cautious - but only if there is cause to be. There is nothing, at all, to suggest that the vaccines have caused any issues with blood clots.

edit: Just want to add that I do have sympathy with your situation Lifelonfaninexile, and I can understand why you're wary, I just think it is important to look into the facts of the situation because it is far too easy these days for "facts" to be born out of fiction and that's something we can't really afford right now!

 

[Decent_Left]

Not wanting to bang on about this but just looking at one newspaper website, something like 7 countries have now paused the use of the vaccine pending further investigation.

I do accept the ‘greater good’ argument and all that but there is a difference between naturally catching a virus which might cause harm and injecting something into your body that you know might cause serious harm.

I don’t think we should be ‘cavalier‘ with it and ignore potential problems because it doesn’t suit our objectives.

The only cavalier issue going on here is Data illiterate journos utterly misrepresenting basic stats and conflating different issues.

Additionally I am in awe of the stupidity of the Health authorities in each of those countries who have put on hold the AZ vaccine. If those countries don't want them, fine but be honest about the reasons using this utterly non story to cover the abysmal roll outs of their own vaccination programmes and getting stuffed in delivery contracts, ending up with collateral issues like the creation of doubt in the minds of citizens everywhere including the UK.

People will die because of these decisions and it won't be from Blood Clots.

 

[Muttley]

A lot of people simply do not understand statistics.

 

[SmallTown]

A lot of people simply do not understand statistics.

9 in 5 people don't understand statistics.

 

[Lifelonfaninexile]

You do realise that recipients of BOTH of the vaccines in use in the UK have had people develop blood clots (at the same kind of level as you would expect in the general population at any given time) - so there isn't an alternative vaccine you could have had?

As has been said many many times the amount of people having these complications after having the vaccine is the same number of people that you would expect to have them (based on historical data) - there will also have been a number of people dieing after having the vaccine but that doesn't mean the vaccine killed them. Every Easter people die not long after eating Easter eggs, but it doesn't mean that Cadburys release defective chocolate every spring... it just means that people die.

I agree that we should be cautious - but only if there is cause to be. There is nothing, at all, to suggest that the vaccines have caused any issues with blood clots.

edit: Just want to add that I do have sympathy with your situation Lifelonfaninexile, and I can understand why you're wary, I just think it is important to look into the facts of the situation because it is far too easy these days for "facts" to be born out of fiction and that's something we can't really afford right now!

I am not one to panic about conjecture, however, as I have already had Covid the perceived wisdom is that I am currently not at risk from reinfection. So my point is that I did not have the option of informed choice.

 

[Ingleby_Flash]

2 points Lifelon

1/ Your Risk of a clot is lower post vaccine than just walking around everyday enjoying life

2/ Pfizer is the only alternative in the UK right now and it currently offers the same risk post vaccination of having a clot - which again is lower than the total population.

Other alternatives are a while away, in the meantime you stand a greater chance of catching Covid and dying than you do of taking either of the 2 current vaccines and not developing a clot, but if you did you would still stand a lesser chance of dying from the clot.

Couldn’t put it better. Plus the countries suspending the vaccine have even less options than us.

The argument that randomly catching the virus is better than deliberately injecting a problem is better is absolute crap if the chances of dying from something you randomly catch are massive higher, which they are.

I have to ask what is the agenda here, because it clearly isn’t preserving life at all costs.

 

[Decent_Left]

I am not one to panic about conjecture, however, as I have already had Covid the perceived wisdom is that I am currently not at risk from reinfection. So my point is that I did not have the option of informed choice.

Lifelon -

Again 2 points

1/ No idea where you picked up the idea that you couldn't be re-infected. It is possible to be re infected and those that are more likely to have severe long term issues

2/ Informed choice - again about what? The Blood Clot situation is not an issue above normal background rates of developing a blood clot

 

[Tommy_Dickfingers]

I've read this thread with interest because I'm hoping to be in the category that get's the vaccine sometime in April.

What does come across to me is that we now have a definite swing in many countries where the scientists/experts are leading governments, and these governments seem so Covid weary that they are not seeing the woods for the trees. In other words, and has been said on this thread a lot, they're not weighing up the pro's & cons and are panicking based on what their general public would say if there were a handful of adverse reactions.

The joys of 24hr/social media I'm afraid.

As far as I'm concerned, get the jab in to me arm and let's get the pubs open !!

 

[Doom_On_Horseback]

The only cavalier issue going on here is Data illiterate journos utterly misrepresenting basic stats and conflating different issues.

Additionally I am in awe of the stupidity of the Health authorities in each of those countries who have put on hold the AZ vaccine. If those countries don't want them, fine but be honest about the reasons using this utterly non story to cover the abysmal roll outs of their own vaccination programmes and getting stuffed in delivery contracts, ending up with collateral issues like the creation of doubt in the minds of citizens everywhere including the UK.

People will die because of these decisions and it won't be from Blood Clots.

This is what I'm struggling with. I don't want to be remiss about the blood clots, but when 6-7 countries halt the roll out of a vaccine, alarm bells quite rightly start to ring with some people. I then think to myself, what information do they have to base this decision on, and from a non-expert such as myself, it seems not a lot. Surely people have died from other non-related diseases which tie in with the national averages and there's not been any concern that the vaccines were responsible?

 

[Decent_Left]

9 in 5 people don't understand statistics.

You know what Small Town reporting in earnest on a claim like that has become more likely in the last number of years as the "news" employs fewer individuals with any sense of genuine reporting rather than simple regurgitating of something they saw in the internet or a press release. On a daily basis my mother sends me what the gazette is reporting on Covid in Teesside (usually by someone not called a journalist but as a Content Associate or suchlike) so I can tell her what's going on. Its the most lumpen uninspiring and worst of all least informative bit of publishing you could wish to see, full of "facts" but no serious analysis.

My favourite is this one from a "Journo" who is still working

https://twitter.com/x/status/758979896131538944

 

[Ingleby_Flash]

BBC head of statistics

”
With millions of people vaccinated in the UK alone we’d expect to see thousands of clots in the month after a jab, just by chance.

That’s because in any given month we’d expect to see (very roughly) one clot for every 1,000 people aged over 80 and closer to half as many for people aged between 60 and 80, according to recently published data.

We’ve seen fewer than 40 cases reported to regulators across Europe, far lower than those rates would suggest.

Of course, not all cases get reported, and we don’t know about the medical histories of the people involved – the medical regulators will go through the details with a fine tooth comb.

But there is no signal shouting out of the data at the moment that vaccination is leading to a substantial increase in the number of people having blood clots.”

 

[Decent_Left]

This is what I'm struggling with. I don't want to be remiss about the blood clots, but when 6-7 countries halt the roll out of a vaccine, alarm bells quite rightly start to ring with some people. I then think to myself, what information do they have to base this decision on, and from a non-expert such as myself, it seems not a lot. Surely people have died from other non-related diseases which tie in with the national averages and there's not been any concern that the vaccines were responsible?

Mr Doom

Without doubt somewhere in the world there will be an individual who due to the Covid vaccine has died as a result of having it. Simple. In a case of very large numbers - and this is hundreds of millions - it has to happen, but...

We have 2 issues here

The first is Risk - The public gets fed nonsense every single day due to the miscommunication of what Risk is. Diets, Bacon sandwiches, Red wine, Catching the bus. Miscommunication, wilful or otherwise, by the intermediaries the press and media conflating a single issue without the context of the wider background. So currently the framing is 7 European countries halting AZ vaccination and it would probably also refer to Blood Clots - Alarming. The point is who reads the second paragraph - very few - and that's where the explanation of the Risk would be. So the headline is the entire story.

The second is that what's the alternative, and at the moment its randomly catch Covid and you could die.

 

[zaphod]

It's a "cover my back" decision by the Irish and other authorities. No-one will be blamed for increased covid infections, as it will be impossible to identify the cause, but the authorities fear being blamed for even one blood clot death after vaccination.