Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 572 posts

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#241

Post by sampo »

yread wrote: post #127
patrickmcnamara wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that unfairly. They keep reducing vaccine deliveries on short notice in the EU and have been opaque in general. I think they have delivered about 10% of what they agreed to for Q1.

Indeed they promised 120M doses in Q1 and so far delivered 12.3M, out of which about 70% has been administered. While delivering basically exactly as promised to the UK and having a stockpile of 30M doses waiting in a warehouse in the US because they paid a higher per dose price.

> having a stockpile of 30M doses waiting in a warehouse in the US

To be fair, AstraZeneca wanted to ship those to Canada and Mexico, but Biden (and earlier Trump) has forbidden exporting vaccines out of US.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#242

Post by colechristensen »

yread wrote: post #114

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…

>Why does everything needs to be so politicized with this vaccine

It is politicized because it effects more or less everyone on the planet and people are setup to take popular things and turn them into polarizing issues for political power in politicians and social capital for ordinary people. This is how a whole lot of people seek out happiness, by being "right" in their social circles, especially in a way that shows them as superior to large groups of others who are "wrong".

Social media preys intentionally or unintentionally on this human psychological vulnerability (can we get a CVE on the human psyche?) and every bit of media wants to sell you a compelling story so they stoke the flames of A/B conflicts.

The mass psychology/mythology/philosophy of the day is based around this crap and will turn anything into a "political" issue and people just generally aren't well educated enough to think independently or evaluate situations rationally on their own so they allow their reason to be driven by systems which are evolutionarily dependent on preying on addictive human behavior.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#243

Post by libertine »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #214
sradman wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EMA has said that as of March 10, a total of 30 cases of blood clotting had been reported among close to 5 million people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca shot in the European Economic Area, which links 30 European countries. "The decision today is purely precautionary..." given this level of signal. We don't have details on the age groups involved and the normal rates expected but I can hazard a Fermi Estimate…

Surely more people will die from COVID than from blood clotting, due to this delay? Or perhaps not, given that 2020 deaths in Germany were 985,145, only 4.85% higher than 2019, and only 3.2% higher than 2018 (and so basically in line with what we would expect from an aging society). https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bevoel...

You're missing the point. This is an anomaly.

It's not about the "oh it's worth the risk compared to COVID 19". If it's a side effect it wasn't spotted in the trials, why was that?

It's not a side effect? It was a problem in production? What problem? Was is tampered with or was an accident? What failed in QA to let that batch come to the public? Was is a storage problem that compromised the batch quality? Was it while in transport or in the local hospital?

You talk about this like background noise. It's not. It should be investigated.

It's good that this is happening, because it shows regulators are doing their job. This is what builds trust in vaccines, not disregarding odd occurrences because they seem to have no "statistical relevance". That's just ignorance talking.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#244

Post by dahfizz »

amelius wrote: post #154
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…

So a more accurate description is: politicians care deeply if people die from an action (or inaction) that went against the public opinion.

To take this further, public opinion cares much more about action than inaction.

A handful of unjust police killings cause widespread protest / riot / unrest, but 15,000 unprevented homicides are largely accepted as part of life.

You can argue that they are morally equivalent, but our brains get more angry at someone doing a bad thing than at someone not doing a good thing.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#245

Post by lm28469 »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #214
sradman wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EMA has said that as of March 10, a total of 30 cases of blood clotting had been reported among close to 5 million people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca shot in the European Economic Area, which links 30 European countries. "The decision today is purely precautionary..." given this level of signal. We don't have details on the age groups involved and the normal rates expected but I can hazard a Fermi Estimate…

Surely more people will die from COVID than from blood clotting, due to this delay? Or perhaps not, given that 2020 deaths in Germany were 985,145, only 4.85% higher than 2019, and only 3.2% higher than 2018 (and so basically in line with what we would expect from an aging society). https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bevoel...

> Or perhaps not, given that 2020 deaths in Germany were 985,145, only 4.85% higher than 2019, and only 3.2% higher than 2018 (and so basically in line with what we would expect from an aging society).

Are we still having this debate.... Of course the overall mortality didn't change much, people stayed at home for literally 75% of the year.

Do you have the split stats for accidental deaths, road deaths, disease related deaths, &c. ? Because otherwise it's meaningless. We can put everyone in an artificial coma and get as little death per year as possible, it isn't a really interesting metric without the context.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#246

Post by libertine »

raducu wrote: post #190
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...

I'm set to take the oxford d vaccine, but I could also take the pfizer vaccine. I've had elevated blood markers for clotting during covid-19, and now I hear of this. I'm thinking of taking 75 mg aspirin, before and after the vaccine. On the other hand, the issue is the patients have low platelet count and I understand that this is the way aspirin reduces blod clotting. So, do these patients have low platelet count be…

You should talk to your doctor and not self prescribe yourself.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#247

Post by dan1234 »

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.

As I understand it, the ratio has been roughly 50/50 and there have been 13 clotting cases with AZ and 15 with Pfizer.

Twitter thread with some commentary & sources:

https://twitter.com/Martin_Moder/status/1371033872046166025

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#248

Post by agd »

Let’s see if any new data comes out, but from what’s public right now I can only see this pause costing many lives across Europe.

We’ve had millions of doses in the UK without serious side effects, so unless there were faulty batches I think any risk must be minuscule, and certainly lower than the known risks of covid deaths for unvaccinated people.

This is a case where a cautious ‘first do no harm’ approach will likely cost many lives.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#249

Post by Frypa »

leto_ii wrote: post #131
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.

While I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your idea, couldn't you make the opposite case as well? Namely that since the AstraZeneca vaccine is mostly British, the government of that country has an interest in hiding/downplaying potentially harmful side-effects? As far as I know by now a bunch of European countries have already suspended vaccination with the AstraZeneca vaccine. These include France, Germany, Italy a…

This. I've lived in both Germany and UK and from my humble experience with both the government and the health standards, I think it's more likely the UK/AZ are downplaying this. It could be that they are right and the impact is minimal given that millions of people have been vaccinated. But I do believe the german version here more. The tory government can't be trusted.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#250

Post by patrickmcnamara »

est31 wrote: post #228
patrickmcnamara wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does it say that AstraZeneca are delivering less because of Italy's interception of vaccines?

> AstraZeneca on Friday said unspecified export restrictions now rendered plans to bring in large amounts of doses made outside Europe unlikely. It said it now expects to provide 100 million doses to the EU in the first half of this year, down from earlier commitments of around 270 million.

> bring in large amounts of doses made outside Europe unlikely

I assume this is referring to the US export ban. It definitely isn't referring to Italy.

Post reply on HN