Your numbers on risk of CVST from AZ vaccine maybe valid for the UK, though I have seen a Norwegian responsible for medicines and vaccines reported as saying the UK has had a number of serious cases of CVST from taking the AZ vaccine, after what they reported when they stopped giving the under 30's year olds the AZ vaccine a few weeks back, and the UK's risk evaluation then.
But in Norway they had at least 5 fatal cases of CVST related to AZ vaccine, and other serious CVST cases, from about 130 thousand people vaccinated with AZ, so near 1 in every 25 thousand. When the Country has relatively low deaths from Covid, 736 as of today I see reported, it's not a given that giving AZ vaccine is worth the risk, especially when other vaccines are available.
The Norwegian Health Department evidently do not think it's worth the risk, but the Government have asked a group of other experts to evaluate it by 10 May, and the AZ vaccine remains on hold at least until then. I think they also hope to have more clarity on whether some age groups/ gender are more at risk than others. Denmark have evidently found it not worth the risk so have stopped it.
You talk of criminality. Surely it is criminal not to properly inform people of the risks of taking a vaccine, and also not to properly evaluate the benefits/ risks of a vaccine before vaccinating your population with it. I'm happy where this information is given, and that proper evaluations are done. Seems like Johnson and Johnson agree.
I wonder what it is that makes Scandinavians, especially Norwegians, so prone to developing these CVSTs versus other populations? And why such a high proportion of them die compared to elsewhere?
Any side effect that happens in less than 1 in 10,000 doses is classified as ‘very rare’, no one hid information about something that was too unusual to pick up in a trial, and actually much less common than the same condition caused by the virus itself.
To be honest Ossie, Norway isn’t the first country that first springs to mind on this, as you say it’s death rate is so low that using any vaccine might be considered too risky for it. It’s the larger countries to your south, especially France and Germany, that I’m thinking of. It’s been proven in the U.K. and Israel etc that vaccination both massively cuts deaths and now transmission of the virus. With our fat and unhealthy population and earlier mismanagement of the pandemic the AZ vaccine has enabled us to save thousands of lives, and it would have been the same in other countries where the virus was/is out of control. The AZ vaccine is much more effective for longer than the Pfizer one on a single dose, which has enabled us to delay second doses and get just about half of the population vaccinated, with now 15% fully vaccinated. This was a fluke, we didn’t know it would work when the decision was made and it made me deeply uncomfortable. Had the Pfizer vaccine been available in quantities to enable everyone to get jabbed just as quickly perhaps it would have been preferable for younger people to have got it (as they now are) just for confidence, not for efficacy reasons. The U.K., correctly, prioritised speed and security of supply (as far as possible in these unique circumstances) over price. The EU did a magnificent job of negotiating on price (except with Moderna) and, because they do trade deals with other countries rather than commercial deals with companies, didn’t understand that there are trade offs involved in this. Once their foolishness had been exposed their bizarre response was to moan about supply while simultaneously slagging off efficacy and safety, with the result that people are scared ****less about very little and are more scared of the vaccine than the virus. It will be easily demonstrable that this has cost lives, even with the supply issues the unused doses count into the millions, each one capable of protecting the individual and the population as a whole.
It was jointly developed by an American company and a German company. It was manufactured in Belgium and Holland under an EU export license.
Citizens of Oz and Canada would have had far less vaccine except for EU exporting it to them. They will be a long time waiting on the UK to assist them with vaccines thats for sure. Hopefully they and Maple in particular remember that.
Just to add, all goods manufactured in the EU and exported from EU countries to non-EU countries are subject to EU laws and customs restrictions on exporting. The EU control whether the goods are authorised to be exported or not, not a joint American/German parent company. If the EU decide to suspend any goods leaving their customs territory, they are perfectly entitled to do so. On that basis, Maple should be thankful to the EU that his particular vaccine was authorised for export.
So the EUs contribution was not to prevent export? And they are entitled to prevent export, but it’s nasty if doses aren’t exported from the U.K. or US? Bring out the flags. There are limited numbers of places in the entire world where the vaccines are made, US, EU, India, Russia and China mostly. At the moment the U.K. manufacturing capacity is 1-2 million doses a week within the country, it’s a drop in the ocean, not enough to meet our own demand. The Pfizer plant in Belgium is designed to deliver to seventy different countries, including the EU countries and the U.K. it’s just a coincidence that it’s in the EU (though would be more understandable if it was in Ireland because of the tax breaks, which that famous Irishman Joe Biden is trying to end), if it was in the U.K. and exporting presumably that would be a win for Johnson.
Pfizer don’t think so much of the amazing rules and regulations of the EU helping them to export.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pfizer-vaccine-production-eu-covid-b1825355.html
