EU agency to confirm AstraZeneca blood clot link | Hacker News Reader

EU agency to confirm AstraZeneca blood clot link

apnews.com

39 pointsgmays18 comments

Zero surprises here. Both Norwegian and German research teams identified the /actual specific novel antibody/ that causes this /new previously unclassified syndrome/ that was effectively unheard of before the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine existed. Also, both teams are phenomenally talented for identifying this antibody so quickly. Usually it is on “finding a needle in a haystack” level difficulty. BTW, I am probably going to get downvoted but I am definitely not an antivaxxer and I received the AZ vaccine as innoculation for COVID-19.

I 100% respect your choice to get the vaccine and even support it! I understand that it can and does help society get back to whatever the "new normal" is (I absolutely despise that phrase). I'm probably more selfish than others when it comes to ""the greater good"" but if you feel comfortable with getting the vaccine, rock on!

I think a lot of people, especially online, like to get into the 'us versus them' mentality (on both sides!), demonizing people for getting the vaccine, and likewise demonizing them for choosing not to get it. Everybody has their own personal risk tolerance, which obviously has biases like fear, misinformation, 'fake news!', etc - but I know society will eventually pull through, though who knows what it'll look like on the other side.

I'm probably going to get flagged/whatever for this, but if there's any chance that I'm going to get blood clots (and potentially die/stroke out/etc. from them) from a vaccine for a virus that has a high percentage survival rate for moderately healthy individuals - I'll pass and either find another one, or wait until the kinks are worked out.

And yes, I did read the article. I'm aware that they said the benefits outweigh the risks, but I'm still not taking any chances.

this link feels silly tbh. 30 blood clot cases out of 18.1 million. That honestly sounds less than how often a blood clot happens randomly in a population that size.

In Norway it was 3 deaths in 130000 vaccinated if I recall correctly. But yeah, Norway definitely seems like an outlier.

Norway only has 680 dead from covid, so not much tolerance on collateral deaths due to the vaccine. The vaccine has about half of the mortality rate of covid, by raw numbers alone in Norway.

Of course, younger women are more at risk and nurses were the the ones who received most doses. This could explain the outlier as well.

I mean on the one hand, yes it does. I completely agree. On the other hand.... My mother has a clotting disorder of some kind and I'm kind of terrified that means I'm more prone to it

I know people who are not going to take the AstraZeneca vaccine, you're not alone.

I would probably reject it too even if it's less dangerous than Covid-19.

It seems pretty safe. Significantly safer than driving. That being said, I'm not taking it because I don't know if it'll have negative consequences to my health in the long term - something I'm pretty sure we don't have data for.

The upside to driving is much, much higher.

I'm just pointing out that the risk seems relatively low by bringing up another data point to compare it to. Not sure why I'm being downvoted.

You are taking chances regardless of your choice in accepting the AstraZeneca vaccine. If you get covid as a healthy young person you have about a 1 in 10,000 chance of dying. If you take the AstraZeneca vaccine you have about a 1 in 400,000 chance of getting blood clots, and a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of dying from them. You pick which chance you’ll take, but either way, you are taking a chance

> If you get covid as a healthy young person you have about a 1 in 10,000 chance of dying

COVID is not just about death though, there's proven lingering neurological and cardiovascular impediments to survivors.

e.g. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-brain/...

> the benefits outweigh the risks

The benefits do not outweigh the risks for one category of people: under 30s with low exposure.

Check the first chart at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/07/under-30s-in...

20-29 year olds with low exposure risk:

* Benefit: ICU admissions prevented by having the AZ vaccine: 0.8 per 100'000 people

* Harm: Serious harm due to having the AZ vaccine: 1.1 per 100'000 people

If "low exposure" means "continuing to isolate", that opens up a lot of other issues that don't show up on those statistics. I suspect there won't be many healthy 20-29 year olds who look forward to keeping their exposure low. Restaurants, bars, even offices are "exposure" -- and for that matter, their homes, if they want to have their friends over.

Low exposure risk assumes an incidence of 2 per 10,000.

You realize Covid causes blood clots too, right? Of course you’re taking chances; you take a chance no matter what you do.

Time to convert existing orders to Moderna or Pfizer and re-target the existing production lines.

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