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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'

#41

Post by throaway_484888 »

oezi wrote: post #23
throaway_484888 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm assuming that these decisions aren't political and are genuinely being taken for medical reasons. I mean, I sure hope so. It's the EU's punishment for the UK leaving. I don't think anyone really thinks otherwise.

The EU is punishing itself? - AstraZeneka is part swedish. - The vaccine is approved and the contracts are signed. No money back for adverse effects.

> The EU is punishing itself?

Yes they're cutting their nose off to spite their face! Or to let their own citizens die - whatever it takes to have a pop at the British!

The UK is having success using primarily AstraZeneca (not 'AstraZeneka') and the EU don't like that, so they're attacking it.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#42

Post by Nursie »

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"

> We don't have time for that

I hope it's being invested thoroughly by the people that know this stuff inside out, from AZ, Oxford and doctors on the ground where this has happened

Damn right a government panel is useless here!

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#43

Post by 5cents »

In Norway, two health care workers are receiving intensive care for isolated low platelets and blood clotting. A third was also admitted but died from a cerebral catastrophe. These are all young (Maybe the risk for some specific groups justify giving them another vaccine?

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#44

Post by mhh__ »

throaway_484888 wrote: post #12
dash2 wrote: post #3

This seems like a case where the precautionary principle is misleading. Maybe there's a small chance that the vaccine can be harmful for a few people. Meanwhile there's a large chance that not having the vaccine can increase your chance of getting COVID. Doesn't even a week's delay in vaccinating predictably increase the number of deaths in a country, perhaps by a large amount given the nonlinear dynamics of epidemic…

> I'm assuming that these decisions aren't political and are genuinely being taken for medical reasons. I mean, I sure hope so. It's the EU's punishment for the UK leaving. I don't think anyone really thinks otherwise.

The drop in export volume is probably punishment enough, this would be a bizarre play

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#45

Post by scotty79 »

corndoge wrote: post #19
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.

Is that obvious? If you have the choice between self quarantining and trying to avoid contracting a virus that, if contracted, has a low percentage of killing you, vs choosing to get a vaccine that also has a low percentage of killing you, why would you choose the vaccine?

Because one "low" is few orders of magnitude lower than other "low".

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#47

Post by dcolkitt »

isolli wrote: post #6
pixiemaster wrote: post #2

with ~300 deaths per day in germany, how many people will this kill?

Vaccine-related deaths are highly visible, daily covid deaths not so much...

This is just after like post 9/11, when a large percentage of travelers decided to drive instead of fly out of fear of plane hijackings. Even though you're orders of magnitude more likely to die in a car accident than an act of terrorism.

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#48

Post by Nursie »

clawoo wrote: post #40
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…

> we in the UK have administered a lot of this stuff, and you'd think someone would have noticed a serious side effect like this Apparently EU vaccines are produced in Europe, maybe there's something wrong in the local production facilities that's causing this. UK has only used AZ vaccines produced in the UK, afaik.

Could be, yes, the production issues a couple of months back were centred around a plant in Belgium, I wonder if perhaps all is still not well there?

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#49

Post by yowlingcat »

drcode wrote: post #18
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.

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.

Oof. I think you strike upon a generally accurate point. Thinking about how this applies to all sorts of bureaucracies now (including corporate ones)

Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'

#50

Post by mcintyre1994 »

dcolkitt wrote: post #21
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.

Well, you see fifty years a few thousand birth defects occurred because one drug was approved too fast. Therefore millions now have to needlessly die while perfectly good vaccines go stale.

> Nearly 60 years ago thalidomide was prescribed to treat morning sickness in pregnant women. What followed was the biggest man-made medical disaster ever, where over 10,000 children were born with a range of severe and debilitating malformations.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26043938/

> The thalidomide scandal may have led to 10,000 miscarriages, stillbirths and infant deaths in Britain, according to the former director of the trust that oversees payments to hundreds of people disabled by the drug taken by their pregnant mothers.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/mar/06/thalidomide-...

IMO you're playing the effect of that down a bit by saying "a few thousand birth defects occurred".

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