UK Covid: Under-30s offered alternative to AstraZeneca jab | Hacker News Reader

UK Covid: Under-30s offered alternative to AstraZeneca jab

bbc.com

23 pointsreddotX23 comments

I think the interesting thing here is that the EMA were publicising their updated advice at the same time as the MHRA and while it seems the MHRA + EMA agree it is a very rare side effect the UK is changing course and the EU will continue to recommend it to everyone. I'm not saying one decision is right and the other wrong but it goes to show how difficult it must be to make these calls (I'm assuming no political influence given the regulators are supposed to be independent).

This is what I don't get in EMA stance, they're basically leaving this decision to each country regulator.

I think it's great that we have a choice. Johnson&Johnson have a little history behind them that everyone should be made aware of though: https://www.asbestos.com/companies/johnson-johnson/

> In 1994, Johnson & Johnson introduced baby powder made of crushed talc. The mineral can be found with asbestos in the earth, raising concern talc products are contaminated with toxic asbestos. In recent years, J&J has lost multimillion dollar lawsuits related to ovarian cancer caused by baby powder.

J&J hasn't been approved yet in the UK. The alternatives would be Moderna + Pfizer. Also, I doubt you'll get a choice of alternative, just whatever one is available in your local area at the time.

Also J&J was not tested on 35M people yet. It could turn out to have other problems. There was already a factory mix up incident in Baltimore which led to the loss of 15M J&J doses and possibly another 62M doses contaminated. That doesn't inspire much confidence, does it?

https://www.businessinsider.com/millions-johnson-and-johnson...

As the article states the factory is run by Emergent Biosciences and they were producing both J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines and somehow cross contaminated the vaccines. No vaccines from that factory had been approved for distribution yet. So maybe there is an issue of confidence regarding Emergent, but not on the two vaccines themselves.

Also we've already heard since then that the US has put J&J in charge of the factory to only produce their vaccine.

Actually, it does - it means there's scrutiny and high quality standards to the point that 15M J&J vaccines were thrown away, and that 62M doses are being checked if they're up to standards.

It means that the watch dogs are watching.

With that said we don't know if other problems will be discovered in the long run, but that's what regulators are there for. In the case of AZ vaccine, they're clearly working as well.

People died in the case of the AZ vaccine. It feels like spin to call that “working.”

Well when you have something happening in a large pool of people (hundreds of thousands/millions) it's not likely that a trial would catch that, so the next protocol after trials is to follow through on any report of a potential side effect.

So yeah, it's working even if people have died with a direct cause of a vaccine.

Well I'm under 30 and got my AZ last week. Now I wish I was waiting for Moderna or Pfizer instead...

Why? Did you have nasty side effects? Are you worried about getting blood clots or not getting the desired immune response?

I also got vaccinated with AZ two weeks ago. Got fever and headaches for a day, took that day off. Another four family members also got vaccinated with it with similar or milder symptoms.

I am not defending them, just curious why people are avoiding it.

Excellent point. One thing I notice in the discussion about AZ is the fact that the risk for thrombosis is not really put into context. One very strong comparison is this: when taking a 6-hour flight the risk for thrombosis is about 5 times higher than the risk currently associated with the AZ-vaccination (ref. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17351849/). Still most of us will happily board a plane once this is possible again. I'm not saying we shouldn't be critical about side-effects associated with the AZ-vaccine, I'm just missing a bit of context.

I got my AZ jab two weeks ago. Knocked me for a six for a day and that's about all it did. I do believe the AZ vaccine is very safe, millions of doses have been given out and only a few had issues with it. But clearly more research should be conducted to work out why it causes blood clots in the unfortunate few so we can make better vaccines in future.

Call me selfish but as an under 30 who hardly leaves the house, I'm in no rush to get the vaccine and will happily leech off herd immunity as long as possible. I'm curious what the uptake will be from my fellow young people.

The UK goes nilly willy doing vaccines of all sorts.

First it was postponing Pfizer for 12 weeks, now it’s we’ll mix and match however we see fit, with no prior study on how that affects people.

I am a huge proponent of vaccines and I have had more vaccines than the average person will ever have, but this doesn't make sense.

Why only under 30s?

Many people, in fact the overwhelming majority of all age categories who already had COVID know that their risk of COVID is actually 0% since their body has already proven to deal with this virus without an issue. These people are past the point of danger and risk. To those people taking a vaccine which has side effects like blood clots just doesn’t make any sense, regardless how old they are.

I can understand that a 70 year old who hasn't had COVID yet will have a higher benefit to risk ratio with the vaccine, but to "COVID survivors" that benefit-risk-ratio is negative.

Besides that it also doesn’t make sense to wave all responsibilities of vaccine producers and then forcing an emergency approved vaccine with blood clot potential on a healthy population through vaccine passports.

I am increasingly more disappointed with out government.

Has there been any cases of people getting infected with covid and then later having a more severe reinfection?

Yes, though most of the cases are from Brazil where the city of Manaus had a massive outbreak in the first wave. Everyone thought that they would be immune after that but since then another variant arose in that area and is killing lots of people who had the previous variant, including a much higher percentage of younger people. This variant is now widespread in Brasil and has been found in other countries, too.

It looks like having an infection gives you some limited immunity but nothing as robust as the vaccines do.

> Why only under 30s?

> I am increasingly more disappointed with out government.

This is a recommendation from the the JCVI...

There's definitely something unsettling about the establishment departing from the pretty conventional and sensible idea that someone who's recovered from a disease doesn't need to be vaccinated against it.

> establishment

You need a citation at very least

Jab 'em all. Opening up society is much more important to the general well-being of the people than saving a handful of people from blood clots, which hasn't even been confirmed.

> which hasn't even been confirmed.

Maybe not by the JCVI, other bodies see the link

EU and UK regulators find possible link between AstraZeneca and rare blood clots https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-astraz...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com