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Comment by Nursie | Hacker News Reader

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 noticed a serious side effect like this. So far reports from the UK seem to show no greater incidence of blood clot problems than would be expected without the vaccine.

Difficult to call, but I hope it's all being investigated thoroughly.

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> Difficult to call, but I hope it's all being investigated thoroughly.

Important point! I start to get anxiety that there might be some Chernobyl level incompetence building up in our bureaucratic countries. I feel like we are getting to levels of a huge quantities of regulations, where then to unblock the process, relevant regulations are relaxed to be able to move forward, leaving us with a lot of regulations that make us feel safe, while the elephant in the room is building up through other valves. I fell like the 737 max thing also more or less fits this framework. So for the future: Let them incentives be aligned and them regulations work in the right direction!

> 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!

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

I'm not so sure about that - vaccination efforts are just finally starting to ramp up, so 2 weeks of vaccinations lost can be hundreds if not millions of people who could have been protected from covid, not to mention the side effects of these people getting infected on the already overloaded hospitals.

It actually will, considering a giant 3rd wave is starting in many of these countries. I saw some rough french analysis that stated that for every 100k doses that are delayed for a day, it will cost 15 lives.

Germany for example has nearly 2 million doses they are delaying, so that's ~300 deaths per day that are caused by these delays. If you delay by a fortnight that's more deaths than on 9/11.

> But as more blood-clot deaths emerge... you gotta think caution is wise.

Last I saw it's 30 blood-clot deaths. Given the number of people that have received the vaccine that's a tiny, tiny amount. Even if those 30 were directly linkable to the vaccine (and so far no such link has been proven) you could still make the argument that the benefits of mass vaccinations outweigh the concern.

I don't envy anyone in charge of making those choices, though.

If it only happened on the continent and there really is an issue, it might lie with one or more batches from the Belgian factory. My country has only halted the allegedly problematic batch. The UK has been using the domestically manufactured vaccine without issue.

Some anti baby pills cause 8-12 trombose cases in 10,000 women. And they are properly tested, approved and on the market.

Usually I don't read notes coming with meds, but I am almost sure that even everyday stuff has potentially deadly side effects in the ball park number of the blood cloths AZ is causing.

> And they are properly tested, approved and on the market.

And there would probably be an investigation into that the moment people using them showed up growing a third arm instead of getting a trombose.

They're called contraceptives or birth control pills :-)

Yes, some drugs have pretty nasty side effects, but vaccines are rather special, because their acceptance affects the entire society and vaccine safety is a sensitive topic, especially in a climate of skepticism. Undermining the idea of vaccine safety will be much worse than Covid (at least at this time).

30 cases, but only 2 deaths i think.

> 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?

Millions of doses administered to mostly senior citizens, whose deaths may not arouse suspicion or further scrutiny, who are at greater risk from COVID than any vaccine side effect.

The equation changes when otherwise young and healthy individuals are at risk of serious complications, even if exceedingly rare.

https://twitter.com/Cox_A_R/status/1371485854846320640?s=20

> I don’t know anyone in pharmacovigilance who thinks what is happening now in EU states is rational based on known information.

> EMA had this right last week. We are seeing panic spread at EU state level.

https://twitter.com/isth/status/1370424157947752452

> The [International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis] recommends all eligible adults continue to receive the #COVID19 vaccine, despite recent decisions by some countries to at least temporarily suspend the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine due to reports of thrombosis. Read the full statement here: https://isth.org/news/556057

> But as more blood-clot deaths emerge... you gotta think caution is wise.

I would challenge the term "caution", as it implies giving the vaccine is more risky than not.

> Difficult to call, but I hope it's all being investigated thoroughly

I agree there. But rather not for medical reasons.

> I would challenge the term "caution", as it implies giving the vaccine is more risky than not.

I suppose it depends on the alternative - if it's "not having the vaccine" clearly that's worse. If it's "controlling the death rate by prolonging lockdowns" then that's clearly not desirable either, but not quite as bad.

If it's just "give a different vaccine", then that would be no problem. Of course then there are the supply issues it's unlikely that simple.

It may be more risky for a certain population (it looks like younger people). We just don't know yet.

The majority of people getting the vaccinations are older. Perhaps we will see more cases will emerge for the younger age groups.

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