I realize that we cannot draw the following conclusion from those numbers, vaccinated vs. unvaccinated, but it would be wonderfully ironic if we indeed found out:
“AstraZeneca vaccine, not only does it protect you against the Covid virus, it helps prevent blood clots.”
The name that makes the most sense is the one that best and most unambiguously identifies the vaccine. If you ask what vaccine you’re getting when it’s being administered, the person with the needle is going to tell you what the label on the vial says, and for this particular vaccine the label says AstraZeneca.
I tend to use “the Oxford vaccine” simply for familiarity for myself and I figure most people - not as an attempt to give proper credit. You’re right though that choosing the mouthfully named drug company as the preferred nomenclature feels off. Coming out of Oxford is a selling point. Oxford is easy to say. What exactly is the reason for preferring “AstraZeneca”?
Is AstraZeneca prominent on the labels made in India by a completely different company? Doesn’t seem so in my image searches. I see “Covishield”.
Right, so just because AstraZeneca did the vast majority of the hard part, that’s no reason to give them priority, right?
Creating a vaccine is easy. Testing it is hard.
As for the potential issues, well, that’s the great thing about having multiple vaccines to choose from. Give the AZ vaccine to younger folks and people without a history of clotting issues, and you’ll free up doses of one of the others for the older and clot-prone patients. You can still make use of the AZ vaccine, and so increase the total supply, and the AZ vaccine being available still means more people getting vaccinated. Maybe (probably, in fact), it’ll turn out to be unnecessary, but as long as it’s still getting put to use, it won’t hurt anything to change who it’s being used for.
Uh, ok. Some might say that the former is the inspiration, the latter the perspiration. I personally wouldn’t slap “easy” on either.
Nevertheless, AstraZeneca is the name used by government authorities here regardless of manufacturer, and presumably also by the medical community. Here in Canada there are only two variants of that particular vaccine, the one made by AstraZeneca and labeled as such, and the one made by SII in India (Covishield) in collaboration with AstraZeneca. Both are known as the AstraZeneca vaccine. A medical tech would certainly be aware of this, but they would have no particular reason to know where it was developed.
US approval will depend in the results of a 32,000 person trial which is due in April.
Very slow vaccine rollouts are a big political issue in Europe. Politicans are under pressure and looking for excuses. There have been big arguments about the availability and contracts for supply.
Perhaps I am being a bit cynical but I suspect that this political pressure has a bearing on some of these decisions to delay the use of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine. They claim to be motivated by the ‘best scientific advice’, but making sure the advice you are given coincides with what you have already decided to do for other reasons. Maybe because politicians messed up buying enough supplies in a timely manner and they don’t want admit it. That politics as usual.
Yes, they chose to do that. I’m saying there’s no reason they couldn’t have called it the Oxford/AZ vaccine. I’m also saying highlighting the Oxford connection would likely lend more confidence in the vaccine.
Oxford is easier to type so I’m going with that. Quite a few countries have put it on hold until they sort it out. It could just be PR to avoid a stampede away from it. There seems to be a wide variance of vaccinations in Europe so they can’t really afford to lose what they have available to public perception.
I think by reacting in this way those countries stoke up concerns rather than calming them down. What happens when equally spurious concerns are raised about other vaccines? (which will happen and may even now be more likely).
I don’t know about that. I would think that seeing health authorities being super cautious would increase public confidence. It does for me. The alternative is going full speed ahead and then seeing incontrovertible evidence of unexpected side effects. That would instantly undermine public confidence in all COVID vaccines.
The problem is that this sets a precedent. By pausing the programs the various governments give the impression that there is something to be concerned about when the data suggests not. It gives validity to the concerns when there is nothing there.
The side effects are being monitored closely anyway, there is little additional analysis to be done other than look at the figures.
The pauses in place will definitely cost hundreds of extra lives, continuing with the vaccine will save far more even if, the concerns turn out to have any basis in fact.
If this turns out to be the expected standard for pausing a vaccine roll out then it is a pretty poor way of proceeding. Wait till the attention turns to the other vaccines. In the UK the Pfizer vaccine actually shows a higher level of clotting events than the AZ one but attention is not on that one…yet.
Indeed, I can’t imagine how this could lead to misinformation or unnecessary fear in the press or amongst the public:
*please don’t click on this - it’ll only encourage them.
Well I am not going to be taking any medical advice from an arsewipe rag like [i[ The Sun[/i]
I have wondered if some countries have paused the AstroZeneca vaccine in part because it is less popular, due to appearing to be less effective in trials.
The J&J and Novavax vaccines both appear to work against the South African variant, albeit less effectively than against most other variants. I don’t think there have been robust tests of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, but info so far has been mixed. And they both appear better than AstroZeneca for the original strain.
There were reports of people avoiding the AZ vaccine in the hopes of scoring a different one prior to these blood clot stories.
So I wonder if the “hmm, let’s investigate these clots” is actually a coverup for “we’re having trouble moving this vaccine anyway, because people prefer the others.”
There has been a big argument in Europe about Oxford Astra-Zeneca that has nothing to do with its efficiency or side effects.
There are production problems and the company has not been able to supply enough to meet its contracts. This has caused a political storm in many European countries with talk of export bans in countries where it is manufactured. Italy recently prevented shipment leaving the country to be sent to Australia and the EU has accused the company of favouring the UK rather its own contract for supply.
These problems are not directly affecting the US and UK both of which have plenty of vaccine from different sources, but elsewhere it is a big deal and politicians are under a lot of pressure.
Many countries in Europe are way behind inoculations. The US is at 21.3%, the UK is at 36% and Italy, France, Germany, Poland are under 8%. Italy’s infection rate rose 10% last week and they’re going back into lockdown.
It’s highly unlikely they would delay vaccinations unless they felt it was necessary. Blood clotting is a big deal. I spent a week in the hospital for open heart surgery. I spent 2 weeks in the hospital for the removal of blood clots that could easily have killed me.
It could be a simple case of a vaccine triggering the same covid reaction that is already known to cause clotting. Also, the chances of clotting increases with age.. That means the most vulnerable to covid are also the most vulnerable to blood clots.
I wouldn’t dismiss the medical review of the Oxford vaccine.
But who said anything about stopping for every anecdote? There was actual collection of over 30 incidents. This was enough, apparently, for an actual investigation. They suspect it may just be one bad batch, though, not a full on thing.
One of the arguments used against taking the vaccines are that they’ve not been adequately tested. So how does it look if the US approves this vaccine before this investigation is finished? That sure looks like inadequate testing to me, and I plan to get the vaccine as soon as I can.
As for the countries that have already approved it, I think it makes sense to at least halt that one batch since it’s the one under investigation. And, if you have enough of the other vaccines, I can’t see anything wrong with prioritizing those for a bit, or at least giving people the option to choose a different one.
The last I checked, the majority of vaccine refusers right now are not ant-vax in general. They really do want to be reassured that everything is safe. So I do think knowing the governments will take things seriously is a net positive.
The main complication I can see is that my proposed actions could actually alert people to a problem they didn’t know about. And that could make things worse.
But if people already know about the issues, I think a pause to say you’ll investigate is more reassuring. Just don’t, you know, pause for everything. Only when there’s a legitimate reason to investigate.