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[martinuzz]

Denmark decided today to stop vaccinating people with the AstraZeneca vaccin because of possible side effects.

[Starver]

When you look up the general rate of spontaneous bloodclots (the issue being reported about) arising in the general population, from any of many other pre-Covid factors, with the reported incidence being examined here (~30 cases in ~5 million vaccinations), I'm not entirely convinced there's even a significant correlation, let alone causation.

(Then consider that the vaccinated are heavily skewed to the older population, which shifts the probabilities even further away.)

Just my first thoughts, not having any access to the medical records doubtless being sifted through (both AE sufferers and those with no problems) to try to prove/disprove the true possibilities of a connection. If it's closely tied to a batch (or single manufacturing origin) then of course it could be 30ish-in-mere-thousands, and potentially more significant a threat.

For Denmark (and Norway) to freeze the AZ rollout must mean they are happy with their remaining doses to take up enough of the slack to not make it more disadvantageous to those still waiting, whatever the case.

[martinuzz]

My country now also temporarily stopped using AstraZeneca as a precautionary measure, awaiting investigation into new side effect cases.
For at least the coming two weeks, vaccinations with it are on hold.

According to our minister 'the reason for this decision is new information that has come to light this weekend. It concerns more and different cases than the limited number of trombose related cases on which our medicine admission agency based it's earlier advice'.
It is not made clear what other cases are implied.

So the Netherlands is now added to the list of Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Ireland, which already have stopped using AstraZeneca vaccin as a precaution.

[Starver]

I continue not to be an expert, or privvy to the innermost knowledge, but this response across the EU (and the EU alone) looks strange, and may not entirely be a medically-prompted response. OTOH, is there an overwhelming reason why everybody else involved (inc. WHO) are continuing to support it despite these apparent worries?

I don't think it's enough to actually infer anything, either way. Don't imagne that I think we'll ever know before a lot more time has passed, if then.

[ChairmanPoo]

Worth noting that the EMA has made a statement in favor of not holding up vaccinations.

Personally I think its 75% hysteria

[delphonso]

Oof. My sister now has the virus. Showing "moderate" symptoms so far. My cousin felt like his lungs would stop working any time he fell asleep, so at least my sister isn't getting that...

[martinuzz]

Now Germany too has stopped using AstraZeneca. Cases of inexplicable low blood platelets after vaccination are being investigated.

[Iduno]

Now Germany too has stopped using AstraZeneca. Cases of inexplicable low blood platelets after vaccination are being investigated.

I wonder if it's only because of the blood clots, or that blood clots weren't reported as a potential side effect. The laws on not reporting known side effects are pretty serious.

[ChairmanPoo]

Most likely its not a real side effect. IIRC the uk reported 13? Cases of clots post-vaccine, out of millions of administered doses. Sometimes people do get clots out of the blue, folks.

[Starver]

Low blood platelets ≠ blood clots, either (maybe the opposite, in fact - thrombocytopenia vs possible thrombocythemia).

It looks like everyone is picking up their own 'favourite' version of "children born to Israeli fighter pilots". Which is even stranger than before.

[ChairmanPoo]

The numbers for thrombocytopenia are not really concerning either

https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-reports-that-ireland-has-suspended-the-use-of-the-oxford-astrazeneca-vaccine/

. The publicly available information on the AstraZeneca vaccine lists a total of 35 cases of thrombocytopenia reported on “Yellow Cards” in the UK up to 8th March 2021.

Anecdotally, I can tell you that someone under my care had signs of low plt counts around a few days after AZ, with no lab confirmation yet.

Not necessarily related either given my trade. I can think of three other more likely reasons for low platelets.

[dragdeler]

-

[ChairmanPoo]

I suspect its somewhat political. If you notice this last couple of weeks AZ failed a vaccine deadline (again) and at the same time J&J got its (apparently superior) vaccine approved and claimed they'd be able to supply the whole EU starting April.
These national moratoriums (against EMA advice btw... I suspect EMA is far less politiced than national regulators) to me sound like the goverments of EU countries are fed up of AZ and want to dump them in favor of J&J.

I dont think its a good idea to do it like this btw. There's a real cost to delaying the vaccination program, even by a couple of weeks. I'd rather keep on giving AZ until the other vaccines could be rolled out en masse.

[wierd]

I am quite pleased with my Moderna vac status.

DEFINITELY not a placebo, but only expected immunological reaction to second dose. (which to me, just proves it is not placebo.)

The stated ratings for it are quite nice too. 

J&J us supposed to be similar.  I agree that delaying vaccination is just unconsionable, but since when as a little thing like THAT stopped politicians from doing the stupid?  (last I checked, NEVER.)

[da_nang]

I don't think it's unreasonable to temporarily halt vaccinations if there is suddenly a new side effect.

If you tested the vaccines on 1 000 000 randomly-sampled individuals and only ten of them died, that doesn't mean the probability of dying is 1 in 100 000. The outcome doesn't always depend on just the vaccine, but also the person: their health, their genetics, etc.

Even if you sampled 1 000 000 people from the entire planet in a truly random fashion, you can expect about 130 people to be from a specific population of size 1 000 000 (hypergeometric distribution). If even a single one of them dies and the cause is due to a characteristic unique to this population e.g. isolated genetic history that creates a "common" genetic condition that leads to a lethal immune response, that's suddenly 1 in 130 chance of death for that population.

Take Finland, population ~5.5 million. Expected number of Finns among the global 1 000 000 tests? About 700. If one of them dies due to a vaccine interaction with a condition abnormally prevalent among Finns (e.g. a Finnish heritage disease), that's 1 in 700. Or an expected number of deaths of about 8 000, far from the 5-6 people that you would expect with a 1 ppm probability of death.

Now obviously, not every Finn would be at risk of death since not every Finn has a Finnish heritage disease (~20 % has as at least one related gene defect). But it's important to rule out the possibility, or you'll end up with another Pandemrix narcolepsy PR fiasco that leads to more vaccine hesitation and skepticism.