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Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

reuters.com

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Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#291

Post by dennis_jeeves »

corty wrote: post #176
Svip wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except this decision was made by the relevant authorities and not by politicians. If anything, Danish politicians are probably not keen on this decision, but have chosen to respect it. It should also be noted that Denmark has a relatively low infection rate, which is probably why politicians has decided not to interfere in the decision.

It should also be noted that public health officials are usually the lowest rungs of the ladder when it comes to ability in medicine. Running your own practice, running a research institute or chair or even just working in a hospital is far more interesting financially as well as for the challenge. Becoming a public servant as a doctor is a way out when your marks are just above passing or your motivation is insuffic…

Agreed the competent are most likely to run their own practice. This is true of virtually any field.

Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#292

Post by dennis_jeeves »

internetslave wrote: post #220
schattschneider wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People on this platform, I assume, are familiar with the scientific consensus on these topics and generally side with the science. But one has to understand, that these decisions are not made directly by scientists but by politicians who have scientific advisors. And as politicians, they will factor in a lot more than just the hard science on a topic, which can result in seemingly unscientific decisions that go again…

The “Science” is used as a religion these days.

My theory is that what is call as 'science' today has replaced mainstream religion. So it is indeed a from of religion.

Most human have a "religion" template in them and they fill in that with some prevailing common belief. In the past it used to the religion containing gods, now it's environment, the virus etc. (Though with the environment/virus as with traditional religion, there are always elements of truth mixed in)

Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#293

Post by slashdev »

staticman2 wrote: post #284
slashdev wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I put it crudely to be dramatic, but it is the core function of a government to choose between competing harms and benefits for different segments of the population (including populations outside their borders when it comes to foreign policy.) > There aren't a lot of humans who would support harvesting the organs of a healthy patient to save 5 sick ones, for example. That's a strawman. I'm not taking the position tha…

Harvesting 5 organs from 1 healthy patient to save 5 sick patients is a variation of the trolley problem, not just a random straw man I picked. The fact that people who are surveyed are fine pulling a lever to kill 1 person to save 5 people from a runaway trolley but don't want to harvest the organs of 1 healthy person to save 5 sick people shows that these ethical problems are "difficult" as one person said up-threa…

This is the slippery slope of analogies. I'm not here to argue about trolley problems or organ harvesting.

I'm here to say that there's a clear right decision to be made here that will cause the fewest number of deaths by multiple orders of magnitude - and the Danes are making the wrong choice because they left the decision to their medical professionals who are biased to first do no harm. It is the role of government to make these kinds of hard decisions, and they need to step up to the plate and do the right thing. This oversimplifies the problem because the deaths from Covid-19 tend to be older people and the deaths from blood clots, tend to be younger. But then there's still a clear right choice to be made by just using the AstraZenica vaccine in older people. This is the sensible decision most countries have taken so far.

What do we do in cases where it's murky like the trolley problem or the organ problem? The government still has to choose, and not choosing is still a decision. In that case if there's no clear answer then maybe the decision doesn't matter that much - both paths are similar.

The trolley problem and the organ problem have been argued about ad nauseaum. I don't expect to add anything new to that. They're different problems. The trolley problem you should pick the 1 to die - it might end up being the worst choice still, but it's the one most likely to do the least harm, so the choice is obvious - IMHO. If I recall correctly, that 1 person is not innocent, they put themselves in this situation, but the 5 on the trolley are and didn't make a bad judgment call. That seems to matter to the ethics of the thing.

With the organ harvesting - all the people are equally innocent. You can't take the life of an innocent person to save the lives of 5 others, even though the math makes sense. That's crossing a line.

Again, they're hard problems, not everyone will agree. But it's the job of the government to choose in hard situations, and choosing nothing is a choice too.

Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#294

Post by scarby2 »

eloff wrote: post #191
jamaicahest wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it's not the government, or any politicians for that matter. It is the decision of medical professionals, basically the danish version of FDA decided to stop using Astra Zeneca vaccine. They have that level of power here in Denmark.

That's the problem. They're strongly biased towards the do no harm side of the balance - even when inaction causes much greater harm. It's simply a blind spot for them. They're the wrong group to make the call here, and the politicians should overrule them.

Politicians don't make that determination right now. Self driving cars are a pretty good example. There's evidence right now showing that most systems are safer than human drivers. Yet still they are not permitted for use despite the fact that it will almost certainly result in fewer deaths.

Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#295

Post by timr »

sofixa wrote: post #215
timr wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden did not "go back on it". They remain with significantly lighter restrictions than ~all of continental Europe: https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency... As far as I can tell, their most stringent restrictions are limits on group gatherings to 8, and closing bars at 8pm: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-30/swedish-h... Contrast to France, Italy, the UK, Belgium, etc., where p…

And Sweden has the worst infection and death rates per capita compared to all of Scandinavia: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1113834/cumulative-coron... https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14034948209802... https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/sweden

So, let's be clear: you make claims that aren't true (Sweden hasn't done what you originally claimed; they have significantly fewer restrictions than most of Europe, even today), and then when people point out the factual inaccuracies in your statements, you retreat to arguing about the wisdom of Sweden's choices.

Reasonable people can disagree about policy choices, but misrepresenting facts as a starting point does not make you look reasonable.

Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#296

Post by sofixa »

timr wrote: post #295
sofixa wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Sweden has the worst infection and death rates per capita compared to all of Scandinavia: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1113834/cumulative-coron... https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14034948209802... https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/sweden

So, let's be clear: you make claims that aren't true (Sweden hasn't done what you originally claimed; they have significantly fewer restrictions than most of Europe, even today), and then when people point out the factual inaccuracies in your statements, you retreat to arguing about the wisdom of Sweden's choices. Reasonable people can disagree about policy choices, but misrepresenting facts as a starting point does…

My claims are true, Sweden has significantly tightened restrictions. And to add insult to injury, their death rate is appalling, so their policy was indeed wrong on top of not working.

Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#297

Post by timr »

hvac wrote: post #218
timr wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden did not "go back on it". They remain with significantly lighter restrictions than ~all of continental Europe: https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency... As far as I can tell, their most stringent restrictions are limits on group gatherings to 8, and closing bars at 8pm: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-30/swedish-h... Contrast to France, Italy, the UK, Belgium, etc., where p…

My understanding is that these restrictions were only imposed in December of last year (and are in force until at least 30 June), so I would tend to agree with the parent that they definitely changed directions.

They added some restrictions, certainly, but it's completely inaccurate to suggest that they've somehow reversed course -- the OP is erecting an ideologically rigid, straw-man argument that Sweden can never do anything differently at all, or they are somehow "going back on" their initial approach.

Overall, Sweden has taken a light touch with the pandemic, and continues to do so, even though, yes, they've adapted over time.

Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#298

Post by timr »

sofixa wrote: post #296
timr wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, let's be clear: you make claims that aren't true (Sweden hasn't done what you originally claimed; they have significantly fewer restrictions than most of Europe, even today), and then when people point out the factual inaccuracies in your statements, you retreat to arguing about the wisdom of Sweden's choices. Reasonable people can disagree about policy choices, but misrepresenting facts as a starting point does…

My claims are true, Sweden has significantly tightened restrictions. And to add insult to injury, their death rate is appalling, so their policy was indeed wrong on top of not working.

You said:

> Sweden had to go back on it

They did not. If your standard for "going back on it" is "adding some restrictions", then you are erecting a straw man argument. By this standard, every country in Europe "had to go back on it", as all of them changed their tactics over time.

Also, not incidentally: I'm aware of no legitimate source for the claim that Sweden's hospitals were "full" (which is a non-specific claim). Most sources I've read emphasized that hospitals were under stress -- like in most parts of the Europe -- with some hospitals closer than others to capacity, and resources being shifted around the nation to manage:

https://www.thelocal.se/20201211/is-the-second-wave-overload...

Again, you could take this article and put it in Paris, Berlin, London, Brussels or other major cities in Europe in December of 2020. Details matter, and vague claims that "hospitals are full" are meaningless.

Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#299

Post by marvin »

raverbashing wrote: post #11
kasperni wrote: post #7

A medical description of one of the danish cases is currently in preprint https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-408726/v1

Thanks for the link. No treatment with immunoglobulin was given in this case, which might explain why it ended unfavorably.

Also, if you're interested, the team of doctors at three Norwegian hospitals have just published their case study of the 5 Norwegian healthcare workers who experienced these rare blood clots.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2104882

The authors conclude

"Although rare, VITT is a new phenomenon with devastating effects for otherwise healthy young adults and requires a thorough risk–benefit analysis. The findings of our study indicate that VITT may be more frequent than has been found in previous studies in which the safety of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine has been investigated."

Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#300

Post by robbiep »

incrudible wrote: post #280
sofixa wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was during the first lockdown. More recently, they're closer to capacity: https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-digest-germany-icu-capacit... > How do you know that it didn't help? We know from epidemiological studies that superspreader events were responsible for causing a surge of cases in a short amount of time. It didn't help in the sense that hospitals are overcapacity and new cases, hospitalisation and death r…

"An intensive care doctor has warned that only five to 10% of intensive care beds are still available in parts of Germany." In most countries, running at 90% ICU capacity is the normal state of affairs, Germany being an exception. Of course you can always warn that the health care system is just about to collapse . In 2015: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/sep/19/nhs-collapse... In 2016: https://www.theguardi…

It’s absolutely true that ICU capacity generally runs at 90% utilisation - ICU beds are bloody expensive (staffing etc). In NSW, Australia, where I live and work (and have worked in ICU) there is a statewide ICU service so if you need a bed and you’re on the other end of the state you can end up getting transferred 1500 km to be in one.

Having said that about utilisation, what pandemic beds requirements meant in the rest of the world and would have meant here is that no elective surgeries could be performed; leukaemia/cancer patient stem cell/marrow transplants couldn’t go ahead and trauma victims risked not being able to be cared for. This was absolutely the case in the UK during the height of things (friends are ortho/trauma surgeons over there and ended up working as assistants in nursing for 3-4 weeks in January).

So, with increase in ICU bed availability through adding new beds and with stopping any potential procedures that would electively require an ICU bed for recovery countries were able to basically meet demands (although many of my emergency colleagues in the UK reported having to determine who was going to be for ICU or not - ie top level care was not offered to some people during the height due to lack of resources) - there is now a massive backlog of patients requiring their baseline care to be fulfilled.

For example, another of my colleague’s mothers is a (retired) dermatologist in London. She was pulled back into work because there are now people presenting eith melanomas that were missed because no one was going for their regular care early in the year. And now they’ve spread and now people are dying because of this; not to mention the backup.

There’s no silver lining here.

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