Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution' • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#191

Post by petre » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:48 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #185

Nursie wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> But as more blood-clot deaths emerge... you gotta think caution is wise. Last I saw it's 30 blood-clot deaths. Given the number of people that have received the vaccine that's a tiny, tiny amount. Even if those 30 were directly linkable to the vaccine (and so far no such link has been proven) you could still make the argument that the benefits of mass vaccinations outweigh the concern. I don't envy anyone in charge…

If it only happened on the continent and there really is an issue, it might lie with one or more batches from the Belgian factory. My country has only halted the allegedly problematic batch. The UK has been using the domestically manufactured vaccine without issue.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#192

Post by bobcostas55 » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:48 PM UTC

mns wrote: post #82

hef19898 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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/…

>which have been doing everything that they can to stop this

Except, you know, order enough vaccines for their population. Other than that though, everything that they can!

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#193

Post by makomk » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:49 PM UTC

calhoun137 wrote: post #39

Since these vaccines got emergency use authorization, that means they did not follow the standard procedure for clinical trials. Therefore, precautionary measures which respond dynamically to trends detected in newly available data, is the logical, ethical, and scientifically correct thing to do, imo.

As I understand it, one of the reasons vaccinations were so delayed in the EU compared to the UK is that they went through the normal approval process rather than emergency use authorization.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#194

Post by rurban » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:49 PM UTC

So far they only vaccinated older people with it. These complications all happened in younger people where we don't have a coverage if millions. More like a few thousands.

Thanksfully Germany acted now rationally, like the other countries. One idea would be to administer only half the dosis on younger people, as this was already tested, with much better results than with the full dosis. AZ is pretty strong, compared to the others.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#195

Post by tpush » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

fab1an wrote: post #164

semigroupoid wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is not made in Germany. Pfizer is responsible for producing it and their plants are primarily in the US.

I don't think that's the case, the US isn't exporting any vaccines afaik and the EU doses are primarily produced in Europe.

The manufacturing of the vaccine is a three-stage process[0]:

The First stage is done in the US.

The second stage is done in the US and Germany.

The third stage is done in the US and Belgium.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer–BioNTech_COVID-19_vacci...

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#196

Post by drcode » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

numpad0 wrote: post #187

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.

I’m not sure if it’s bureaucracy or human nature, as government procedures had been responsive to the pandemic, and pressure to urge inactions have been overriding the pre-pandemic determined actions.

Pretty much all the responses of the government that were done quickly were to prevent action (i.e. no going to restaurants, no flights to certain areas, etc) so I'd argue that that also represents "inaction", just in a roundabout way.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#197

Post by ralfn » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

xgb84j wrote: post #100

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.

The ethical issue is that the people dying from COVID and the people who might have an adverse reaction from the vaccination are not the same people. If mostly old people die from COVID but the adverse reaction of the vaccine is independent of age, then for very young people the risk of an adverse reaction of the vaccination might outweigh the risk of permanent damage from COVID.

Yeah. As someone not in any risk group I will prefer the Pfizer or Moderna one. I'll be happy to get the Janssen one or even the Sputnik, but if the vaccine they offer me is AZ then I will refuse.

And not just because of the obviously higher risk associated, but also because it appears not to be effective against the new strains. (Especially the new South Africa strain). Unlike for example the Janssen vaccine (goes by their parent company of Johnson and Johnson in the US) which was actually validated in South Africa or the rna ones which are just a technical masterpiece.

Keep in mind that the real shortage of vaccines is production locations right now. And the type of production of the Janssen, AZ and the Sputnik vaccine is all similar. So why even produce more of the worst vaccine in any of these locations.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#198

Post by est31 » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

fab1an wrote: post #133

Looks like this may be a bit more relevant than many of the snarky comments would suggest - the relevant German authority on this said that they have seen a unexpected increase in a specific type of blood clotting issue that usually is very rare: https://www.pei.de/DE/newsroom/hp-meldungen/2021/210315-voru...

Is that the real reason? In times of crisis one must be wary of propaganda. AstraZeneca has recently announced they'd deliver even less to the EU because of Italy's interception of the delivery headed to Australia [0]... Europe having to halt the vaccinations with AstraZeneca due to none being in stock makes europe lose far more face than halting them because of quality concerns...

[0]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/astrazeneca-warns-europe-of-lar...

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#199

Post by dehrmann » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

WanderPanda wrote: post #123

xgb84j wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but those are different people that might be killed, which makes it an ethical dilemma. Depending on the type of adverse reaction, it might be safer for young people to not get vaccinated at all or with a different vaccine. (For example if the adverse reaction affects mostly young people, while COVID affects mostly older people.)

Thats why everyone should be free to chose to get vaccinated. It is not fair to transfer the disease risk from old/risk groups to (longterm) side-effect risks for young/healthy people

It's a little cold, but the rollout targeting old people first helps a lot with de-risking. It reminds me of the group of people over 60 who worked on containing the Fukushima reactor. That was more altruistic and would only happen in some cultures, but it's a similar net outcome.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#200

Post by the8472 » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

Arnt wrote: post #105

the8472 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet it's fewer deaths than due to overly cautious vaccine approvals.

How do you know that before the cautious testing and approval procedure ? The EU recently approvied and has bought 200M J&J vaccines, I don't remember numbers of the other vaccines. If that vaccine were about as harmful as thalidomide, about 3000 babies would die during birth, and a considerably larger number would be born without an arm or similar.

Without hindsight we can still see that countries differed in approval timelines by a month even though they should have the same information available at the same time. Which means either one is taking more risks than necessary or another one is wasting time (and thus lives).

And that's just approval, then there's the whole issue with the EU taking too long to negotiate lower prices instead of pre-paying for faster production ramp-up.