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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'

#321

Post by tazjin »

blagie wrote: post #318
tazjin wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the risk is minuscule compared to COVID-19 itself You don't know this at all - we don't know what age groups are affected here, and COVID is pretty much negligible in many younger age groups. It's best to wait for more data to come in before drawing any conclusions.

The risk *of death* from COVID is pretty negligible for some age groups. The biggest confusion of this whole situation is we've fixated on CFR numbers as a measure of risk. Risks of long-term consequences don't seem to be all that low.

I haven't seen anything that indicates that the risk of long-term consequences is significantly elevated above other viral diseases. There is a condition (which we know too little about, and which - as one of the few good outcomes of the COVID situation - is now actually getting some attention) that can lead to fatigue and other symptoms after fighting off a viral infection, but it's not unique to COVID.

A year ago there was a lot of noise about things like heart issues induced by COVID, which turned out to be mostly statistical errors in the papers that made the claims.

A lot of people (often people who never actually had a positive test) also claim to suffer from various mental impairments after their COVID infections, and some newspaper ran an article saying that some of these symptoms were alleviated after the people were given anxiety medication. Go figure ...

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#322

Post by h3cate »

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 UK has been in lockdown for the last 3 months. If cases are dropping the vaccine is not likely to be the main reason why.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#323

Post by h3cate »

drcode wrote: post #34
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…

> Difficult to call, but I hope it's all being investigated thoroughly. We don't have time for that, we can't wait for some government panel to announce in 2025 "actually the blood clots were no more common than in the general population"

Most countries are pausing rollout for 2 weeks. After over a year of covid 2 weeks won't make a big difference.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#324

Post by mikem170 »

fasteddie31003 wrote: post #169
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.)

No one is forcing you to get the vax. I would have personally taken the Moderna vax months before the FDA approved it because I was following the research closely.

I'm curious, were you able to find specific numbers for any of the studies done for regulatory approval? The raw data showing how many people got the drug, how many had side effects, and how this compares to normal rates?

I haven't had any luck with that. I assume these numbers are what the FDA is looking at. Possible side effects are documented in the packaging for a drug, but that doesn't qualify the risk without numbers. I'd prefer to know this for any drug I'd consider using. I find it strange that this data is so hard to find.

I ask because it sounds like you went pretty deep in the vaccine you mentioned, maybe you bumped into this.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#325

Post by Mudface_72 »

chmod775 wrote: post #296

Absolute fucking stupidity. Thirty cases of blood clotting out of five million. More people will die because they're not vaccinated. And that's ignoring the fact that this may just be a statistical blip. There's a lot of diseases humans could catch, and sometimes there's going to be clusters. German politicians said they're suspending vaccinations "out of an abundance of caution". Given these numbers, we should conti…

The headline is misleading, half of Europe put AZ on hold. Because the complications hit young health workers. We prefer to keep our health workers alive, maybe other countries have other strategies, just go ahead, maybe we will follow.

On Monday Germany, Spain, Italy, and France were among those to suspend deployment of the vaccine, following similar moves made last week by Denmark, Norway, Ireland, and others.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#326

Post by mikem170 »

theaeolist wrote: post #289
colechristensen wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an incorrect statistical comparison. It is 0.58% of all deaths being caused by covid. As in 994 out of 1000 people under 18 died in the same period from other things. Compared to people who are alive covid killed 0.000288% (or 1 in 350,000) under 18s. 30 in 17M is too few to have a reliable statistic, but that comes out to 1 in 567,000. If that holds, is age invariant, etc. etc. and ignoring the time-based na…

How is 1/350,000 a LOWER risk than 1/567,000? I don't get it.

They are relatively close, enough so that unknowns may change the equation. Are there more unknowns for covid in young people, or more unknowns from the vaccines?

(I'm not commenting on how to solve this equation, just pointing out other factors)

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#327

Post by StavrosK »

jayd16 wrote: post #146
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…

>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. What about the Hippocratic oath? First do no harm.

I mean, it doesn't actually say that, it says "I will do no harm" and "I will abstain from all intentional wrongdoing". That doesn't mean that doing nothing is fine, because you didn't do harm.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#328

Post by h3cate »

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.

Why put people that are at low risk from covid at risk by giving them a vaccine?

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#329

Post by h3cate »

fasteddie31003 wrote: post #169
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.)

No one is forcing you to get the vax. I would have personally taken the Moderna vax months before the FDA approved it because I was following the research closely.

Ha if only this were true. UK companies are requiring employees have the vaccine and ba is requiring the vaccine to travel.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#330

Post by tonyedgecombe »

Nursie wrote: post #91
sjwest wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its unfortunate they felt the need to stop the administration of this vaccine, as this will only further slow down vaccine distribution in Germany/Europe. I think you've got it spot on there - it stinks of politically motivated attack, but I'm not clear how this could benefit Germany's politicians slowing down the administration of the vaccine? Maybe they can use this as an excuse for the poor administration rates???…

A bunch of friends of mine have spent a couple of days pretty whacked by it. Tiredness and a few headaches mostly. Make sure to get plenty of water and rest :)

I think it’s quite common to get flu like symptoms. Several people in my family did.
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