[Info-vax] [Totally OT] Covid-19 vaccine situation

[Phillip Helbig undress to reply]

In article <s41s2j$5ul$1 at dont-email.me>, Simon Clubley
<clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes: 

> My question is this: What the hell is going on with the vaccine authorisation
> decision makers in Europe (and elsewhere, such as Canada) at the moment ?
> 
> I'm reacting to the various decisions made to restrict or even stop the
> use of the AstraZeneca vaccine just because of a few possible cases of
> nasty blood clotting side effects out of many millions of doses given.
> And at the moment, it's not even clear if the AZ vaccine is even
> responsible for those cases because there are so few of them.

Yes, there are few, but none with other vaccines, so it is pretty clear 
that it is a side effect.  It seems that the cause has also been found 
(an auto-immune reaction).

Yes, a low risk.  However, most people don't have a good understanding 
of relative risk, and playing it safe avoids more people becoming 
sceptical about vaccinations in general.  Also, the thromboses are 
relatively recent; there might be more to come.

In any case, it's better than Donald's handling of the "China virus".

> I really can't get my head around some of the decisions being made
> in the rest of Europe at the moment and I am hoping that some people
> who actually live in those countries might be able to provide some
> insights that I am clearly missing.

See above.

> Medicines in general are not safe. They are instead "mostly safe" and
> they all come with risks as a reading of the safety information leaflet
> for the medicine will reveal.

Of course, but such side effects have been seen by only one vaccine.

> Some medicines have risks of very nasty side effects at the level of
> 1 in 10000 people taking them. Yet people take those medicines because
> the benefits to most people outweigh the risks to a very small number
> of people.

Right, and most of those have years or decades of data to base a 
decision on.

> The number of people who may be affected by blood clots as a result of
> having the AZ vaccine is far fewer than even 1 in 10000, but the same
> people who want to ban the AZ vaccine in parts of Europe are the same
> people who have no problems with other medicines which have nasty
> side effects at the 1 in 10000 people level remaining on sale.
> 
> Why for goodness sake ?

The main reason is that with other medicines, if you choose not to use
them, you hurt essentially only yourself, whereas with vaccines there is
also the protection of others, hence public pressure to get vaccinated. 
Different ballgame, right tool for the job, etc. 

> Are some people really so risk-adverse that they are looking for medicines
> without _any_ side effects and are unwilling to accept a low level of risk ?

No.

> Are these same people actually really playing politics with the lives of
> their citizens for some screwed-up reason ? I really hope this one isn't
> the answer to be honest.

No.  There are other vaccines.

> The longer that some people play stupid games and slow down the vaccine
> effort, the more opportunities the virus has to mutate into something
> that the current vaccines will not work against. It also means that more
> people end up dying than would otherwise have died.

The risk of not doing anything and widespread vaccination scepticism 
coming up as a result is much greater.  Much greater.

> The only decision that makes sense to me is to go all-out with the
> vaccines that _are_ currently available in order to get the death
> rate (and serious long-term problems from the virus for some survivors)
> down to a much lower level and hence end up saving a lot of lives.

That's what's happening.  AstraZenica is no longer recommended for 
people, especially women, under 60 (almost all of the thrombosis cases 
have been in women, some quite young), but it is mostly older people 
getting vaccinated now.  No waste.

> Oh, and I had my first AZ dose a couple of weeks ago and was very happy
> to have it at the time because the benefits dramatically outweigh the
> risks.

Sure.  But that is not an automatic answer to all the points above.