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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'

#371

Post by thelean12 »

azinman2 wrote: post #367
GhostVII wrote: post #363

Sounds like a real world case of the trolly problem. Either take no action (by giving out no vaccine) and let hundreds die each day, or give out the vaccine and kill a few people each day (assuming the vaccine is causing the deaths, which likely isn't the case anyways).

That trolly problem is a one off. Having a major vaccine lead to serious issues puts all of vaccines into question, creating a far larger problem spanning time. It's already the case that various sub-communities are hesitant to get the vaccine based upon previous experimentation on their populations long ago, such as the Tuskegee Study.

> Having a major vaccine lead to serious issues puts all of vaccines into question, creating a far larger problem spanning time.

Is pulling the vaccine (with minimal evidence that it's causing issues) worse? How many people are going to turn down the AZ vaccine now, even if there's not actually an issue?

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#373

Post by Dma54rhs »

hntrader wrote: post #290
libertine wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like I trust the regulators for vaccine approval, I trust them in the decision of stopping the administration of a vaccine to further investigate the problem. This goes together. It's not a political decision no matter how many people try to spin this. This is the outcome of doctors reporting an anomaly to a regulator. The system is working, and this should give you reassurance, not doubt about the consequences…

"It's not a political decision" It likely is, though. From the perspective of the regulators, there are asymmetric personal consequences. If they make a decision that leads to 50 clotting deaths but saves 5000 people from COVID as a counterfactual, their head is on a chopping block because those 5000 foregone deaths are invisible but the 50 deaths are visible. If they make a decision to halt the vaccine distribution…

You could use the same arguments and mindset when you're an antivaxx. Vaccines can't be a holy cow that gets defended no matter what. It's always interesting that people who claim to not trust big business big pharma somehow defend everything vaccine related to death. Regulators halted it snd wait for new information to come in, that is how it's supposed to be.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#374

Post by sradman »

sradman wrote: post #206
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...

> 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…

British Columbia's Dr. Bonnie Henry discusses [1] (5min YouTube clip up until 28m37s) the decision process surrounding Adverse Events Following Immunization (AEFIs) [2] within the context of the EMA decision involving the AstraZeneca vaccine. Her explanations tend to mirror her refrain "Be Kind, Be Calm, Be Safe".

For those jurisdictions like the UK, India, and Canada that continue recommending AstraZeneca, I'd suggest that COVID-19 vaccines are like beer; the best one is the one in front of you.

[1] https://youtu.be/xbLJCh9XHl0?t=23m42s

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_adverse_event

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#375

Post by ineedasername »

thelean12 wrote: post #371
azinman2 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That trolly problem is a one off. Having a major vaccine lead to serious issues puts all of vaccines into question, creating a far larger problem spanning time. It's already the case that various sub-communities are hesitant to get the vaccine based upon previous experimentation on their populations long ago, such as the Tuskegee Study.

> Having a major vaccine lead to serious issues puts all of vaccines into question, creating a far larger problem spanning time. Is pulling the vaccine (with minimal evidence that it's causing issues) worse? How many people are going to turn down the AZ vaccine now, even if there's not actually an issue?

People turning it down would happen anyway once the reports started coming out. By withdrawing it pending more data, when (if) it comes back to market there will be increased confidence that it's been properly vetted. At least, more confidence than if it was left on the market as clotting reports continued to roll in.

I don't think there's really a good answer here though. It's balancing human lives in the basis of imperfect data and predictions of human behavior.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#376

Post by garmaine »

GhostVII wrote: post #363

Sounds like a real world case of the trolly problem. Either take no action (by giving out no vaccine) and let hundreds die each day, or give out the vaccine and kill a few people each day (assuming the vaccine is causing the deaths, which likely isn't the case anyways).

> assuming the vaccine is causing the deaths, which likely isn't the case anyways

The number of people who got sick equals the base rate, so I really don't see how this could be the case.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#377

Post by jdavis703 »

azinman2 wrote: post #367
GhostVII wrote: post #363

Sounds like a real world case of the trolly problem. Either take no action (by giving out no vaccine) and let hundreds die each day, or give out the vaccine and kill a few people each day (assuming the vaccine is causing the deaths, which likely isn't the case anyways).

That trolly problem is a one off. Having a major vaccine lead to serious issues puts all of vaccines into question, creating a far larger problem spanning time. It's already the case that various sub-communities are hesitant to get the vaccine based upon previous experimentation on their populations long ago, such as the Tuskegee Study.

Using the Tuskegee Study is a bad example. The African American community has among the lowest rates of vaccine hesitancy, it’s about half of what Republican males report.

Source: https://www.axios.com/concern-republican-coronavirus-vaccine...

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#378

Post by incrudible »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #370
libertine wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 whil…

> This is an anomaly. This is not established at all. Overall the number of blood clots observed is actually less than expected, with an incidence lower than in the general population (i.e. without vaccine at all). My source is BBC News this evening.

This is old news. As of today, there is a suspicious rise in a specific form of blood clotting in Germany, hence the suspension.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#379

Post by siilats »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #350
eecc wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're on meds, don't skip doses. If not, please go find a specialist and get some help.

We already place a human value on life in healthcare, via QALY (Quality Adjusted Life Years) This is typically about $50,000/year in places like the UK. If you run this same calculation against what we have done for COVID, the figure comes to tens of millions of dollars per life year. The same sums spent on lockdown and lockdown compensation could have been invested in general healthcare, or tackling air pollution (w…

Actually the actions work out at about $50k per qaly in US. We spent $5tn to save 1m lives Who each had about 20 years left to live. That would be $250k per qaly but hopefully not all of the $5tn was wasted/spend on additional health care costs, lot of it was to build roads and bail out mafia run multi employer pension systems in US which would have happened anyway

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#380

Post by incrudible »

Dma54rhs wrote: post #373
hntrader wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's not a political decision" It likely is, though. From the perspective of the regulators, there are asymmetric personal consequences. If they make a decision that leads to 50 clotting deaths but saves 5000 people from COVID as a counterfactual, their head is on a chopping block because those 5000 foregone deaths are invisible but the 50 deaths are visible. If they make a decision to halt the vaccine distribution…

You could use the same arguments and mindset when you're an antivaxx. Vaccines can't be a holy cow that gets defended no matter what. It's always interesting that people who claim to not trust big business big pharma somehow defend everything vaccine related to death. Regulators halted it snd wait for new information to come in, that is how it's supposed to be.

Perhaps individuals should have a say as to which risk is preferable to them. As it is, the antivaxxer gets to choose not get vaccinated, but the provaxxer must wait for someone elses approval.
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