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Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

reuters.com

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Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#111

Post by esperent »

isolli wrote: post #90
fasteddie31003 wrote: post #9

The pandemic has made me believe we need to be greater consiquentalists in our polices. It's pretty obvious that on the whole the AstraZeneca vax will save more people than are killed from the side effects. We don't not live in a 0 risk existence.

Agreed, and the same argument can be applied _against_ lockdowns (meaning measures such as mandatory stay-at-home orders that go beyond usual NPIs). I think it is slowly emerging that hard lockdowns have done more harm than good. There is no zero risk in life.

There's a big difference here though - when it comes to a vaccine, we have hard stats to define the risk/reward ratio.

I believe it's likely that lockdowns may cause some deaths, or possibly even lots of deaths. However, they certainly help prevent the spread of deadly disease too and hence prevent many deaths. We can probably get fairly definite numbers on how many deaths lockdown prevents in a large population. I don't think we can get similar numbers on how many they cause. My gut says they probably prevent a lot more than they cause, but I'd like to see any studies on this, if anyone has a link to share.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#112

Post by s_dev »

DrBazza wrote: post #77
s_dev wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's entirely possible a facility is producing vaccine that isn't up to QA standards i.e. a bad batch. The Irish reasoning for suspending AZ wasn't just because of blood clots but blood clots in the brain which have a completley different severity.

> In terms of quality, there are also no confirmed issues related to any batch of our vaccine used across Europe, or the rest of the world. https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2021...

Right but since when is "We investigated our data and found no problems" sufficient -- only independent verification will do.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#113

Post by detaro »

high_derivative wrote: post #96
mns wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we've been in a 5 month lockdown already in Germany, all of it to stop the spread of the virus with huge costs to the country, and now the comment that I replied to is saying that "I think this is part of political cover for the failing". Meaning that Germany and the EU, which have been doing everything that they can to stop this, are now somehow involved in a political cover to get some sort of revenge on the UK/…

But they did not do everything they can. They did not expedite AZ vaccine approval, they are messing up the rollout, they tried to negotiate prices instead of securing vaccines at all costs. They made a whole theatre about AZ deliveries and almost created an international crisis around Ireland..but no, no political aspect to it, none at all.. I don't think they are trying to get revenge. They are trying to cover for…

so how does further slowing vaccine progress, making it even less likely they'll meet the adjusted goals and anouncements, "cover for their failings", especially if there is a good chance it'll turn out it was unnecessary? At least right now people's reaction for sure isn't "oh too bad then, not your fault".

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#114

Post by yread »

I've mentioned it in a comment in the previous thread but it's not completely unexpected and with no causal link. Adenovirus induced blood coagulation problems are known:

Adenovirus-induced thrombocytopenia: the role of von Willebrand factor and P-selectin in mediating accelerated platelet clearance

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000649712...

You can see the number of reported cases across Europe in the EUDRA Vigilance database (if you manage to get through the Oracle BI interface and if it doesn't error out)

https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/human-regulatory/research-devel...

I don't understand why AstraZeneca doesn't just say: yeah blood clots are a risk, incidence 1/100,000 and everyone can move on. Why does everything needs to be so politicized with this vaccine.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#115

Post by andyjohnson0 »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #92
subltemelt wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting because I feel the opposite as an acute care doctor in the US. If I give a medication, or get a scan, or whatever, and the patient has an adverse reaction, it's the medication/scan's fault. If I don't give the medication, don't get the scan, and something bad happens, it's my fault. At least that's how people see it for now. Leads to a lot of over-treatment and extra unnecessary testing in my opinion…

Exactly. You care if people die on your lawn. So you give out medication, do scans, etc. so that if people die they do it on someone else's lawn. It's ass-covering all the way down.

> You care if people die on your lawn.

I don't know how you know that. Given the significant time and effort required to become a doctor, isn't it at least as likely that they are motivated about people not dying on any lawn?

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#116

Post by WanderPanda »

Nursie wrote: post #20
giantandroids wrote: post #8

You do have to wonder if some of this is politically driven. Germany are losing hundreds of life's a day, while in the meantime the UK has administrated 23 million doses (not sure the ratio of those that were AstraZeneca) and not recorded a single fatality or adverse reaction and are seeing infection rates / deaths drop. I can understand caution under normal circumstances, but nothing is normal right now.

I'm not sure at this point. When it was one suspicious death, countries suspending the vaccine definitely seemed like an overreaction, and unfortunately this particular vaccine has been something of a political football and subject of a lot of noise. But as more blood-clot deaths emerge... you gotta think caution is wise. OTOH yes, we in the UK have administered a lot of this stuff, and you'd think someone would have…

> Difficult to call, but I hope it's all being investigated thoroughly.

Important point! I start to get anxiety that there might be some Chernobyl level incompetence building up in our bureaucratic countries. I feel like we are getting to levels of a huge quantities of regulations, where then to unblock the process, relevant regulations are relaxed to be able to move forward, leaving us with a lot of regulations that make us feel safe, while the elephant in the room is building up through other valves. I fell like the 737 max thing also more or less fits this framework. So for the future: Let them incentives be aligned and them regulations work in the right direction!

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#117

Post by niklasbuschmann »

greenpresident wrote: post #4
pixiemaster wrote: post #2

with ~300 deaths per day in germany, how many people will this kill?

Casual estimates are at 1700/week. https://mobile.twitter.com/politicsforali/status/13714790084...

This number is highly dependent on the case numbers of a country, so I wouldn't be too sure about it.

My very rough calculation: There are ~ 200,000 vaccines administered daily in Germany, of which maybe 50% are AstraZeneca, so lets say we are delaying 100,000 vaccines / day - corresponding to 0.1% of the population vaccinated with Astra-Zeneca per day. Currently there are ~ 200 daily COVID-19 deaths in Germany, so in proportion one would expect ~ 0.2 additional deaths per day (~2 per week) due to the delay.

Assuming people prioritised to get AstraZeneca are 10x as likely to die from COVID than the general population, this still leaves us with 20 deaths / week due to the delay.

The big question is now how many people will die because they are infected by someone who could have gotten vaccinated sooner, but with a R of ~1, and less than 20 weeks until the whole population is vaccined, I doubt this will give two more orders of magnitude.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#118

Post by nradov »

subltemelt wrote: post #85
drcode wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A problem with bureaucracies is that they often care deeply if people die from an action they are responsible for, but are fine if there are massive deaths due to inaction.

It's interesting because I feel the opposite as an acute care doctor in the US. If I give a medication, or get a scan, or whatever, and the patient has an adverse reaction, it's the medication/scan's fault. If I don't give the medication, don't get the scan, and something bad happens, it's my fault. At least that's how people see it for now. Leads to a lot of over-treatment and extra unnecessary testing in my opinion…

I thought that methylprednisolone was now preferred over dexamethasone for COVID-19 treatment.

https://covid19criticalcare.com/medical-evidence/methylpredn...

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#119

Post by rel2thr »

maxerickson wrote: post #10

It seems the rate of these conditions isn't any different for the vaccinated than for the population (last bit of the article makes this point). What's the thought process here?

Blood clots have a known set of causes and risk factors. If the people getting these clots aren’t people who normally would get clots , it’s cause for concern. The overall rate doesn’t matter much

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#120

Post by danpalmer »

hef19898 wrote: post #58
mns wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone would say this about COVID, they would be downvoted into oblivion for spreading unfounded conspiracy theories. It's already 6 countries in the EU that reported issues until now.

Yeah, and I rightly so if you ask me. AZ seems so to get all the heat in the press. I really wonder why, but as soon as you start looking at the numbers, there never seems to be something to it. First it was efficiany with elderly in the study, were the numbers were totally misunderstood. Then it was overall effectiveness, then prevention of severe cases. The list goes on. In the meanwhile, the press is reporting eve…

The AZ vaccine is also the only not-for-profit vaccine.
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