Approved but we aren’t getting any doses for 3/4 weeks. We’ve been screwed over big time by AZ. In fairness to Trump, putting a wall around US produced vaccines has paid dividends. AZ snuck 8m out of the EU to give to the U.K. in February as they were their test country.
What’s better for vaccine reluctance: a delay followed by an announcement that it was a false alarm -or- no delay and continuing to give a vaccine that causes negative outcomes.
It's almost as if AZ produced their vaccine with a British institution. Pfizer isn't only U.S.-produced, and it wasn't U.S.-developed. Spending money on production and distribution helped, but there is no wall.
The first one of course, but that ignores the third option of continuing to give the vaccine and it turning out to be a false alarm. I’m just venting a bit because it’s frustrating to read about the further delays to the vaccine schedule caused by this decision and then the EU and WHO coming out and recommending to continue with the vaccine as planned. It’s obviously not an easy decision to make though, as evidenced by the differing stances taken by government and health organizations across the world.
Well this AstraZeneca Europe issue seems like a proper mess now. There are conflicting opinions everywhere and I guess we’ll see what happens with the EMA conclusions on Thursday.
Separate issue The EU spent loads of money on production. AZ shipped out millions of vaccines from Europe before they had applied for approval because they needed to get the programme started on the U.K.
In Norway Moderna supply is limited until the summer and J&J just got approved and isn’t expected until April. Pfizer is the most plentiful one right now but AZ was supposed to be the second most so it’s a big enough proportion that’s now paused. Note that Norway orders through the EU but I’m not sure if the allocation split of vaccines is uniform for all countries ordering so this may not be the same situation for the entire EU. Part of it is also that the virus is running rampant right now and restrictions are still strict, so vaccine issues are just adding to the pity party.
Hitching onto the AZ (really Oxford) train was always going to be a mistake. Academics aren’t good at this sort of thing. This sucks.
pperc Moderna just announced they've started inoculating kids for their children under 12 study. This states it's a phase 2/3 study though, do they really need to find as many instances of COVID positivity as they did for the larger Phase 3 trial done last year? I was hoping they'd have these shots ready to go by early fall but I assumed the study only really needed to test dosage and safety, not necessarily efficacy again. https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...-19-Vaccine-Candidate-in-Pediatric-Population
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-020-00261-9#:~:text=In the absence of efficacy,in a suitable animal model. Efficacy will be tested through immunobridging or a correlate of protection if one is established. Doesn't sound like they will be looking for infection events.
I really didn't read carefully the end of their statement which literally explains this lol, thank you. Hope one of the big companies has shots ready for young kids soon.
Don't love this. AZ vaccine 10% effective against SA variant. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2102214?query=pfw&jwd=000020188612&jspc=GP
So glad the AZ isn't one of the vaccines offered in the US, seems like it's a disaster. On the other hand, this is still really bad news, hopefully they can either figure something out or ramp up production of another vaccine.
It'll get clicks for sure. Meanwhile, at the WHO just yesterday https://www.who.int/news/item/17-03...n-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-safety-signals
Two more people under 50 have died after receiving the AZ vaccine in Norway. That’s three total now, and if I remember correctly, all were reportedly healthy prior to receiving the vaccine. The chances of this happening after the AZ vaccine is still quite low based on the current numbers, but it also means that at present more young, healthy people have died from the vaccine than from covid itself here.
that’s good although the timing is terrible. I can already see people lining up to say “well if they approve AZ as safe than why should we consider anything else they have as safe”
you do realize that the vaccine doesn't protect against death from all causes right? people will still die from all sorts of things as they always do. this doesn't mean it's caused by the vaccine.
Yes of course, but I based that off of what the Norwegian investigation concluded, which is that the symptoms associated with the five hospitalizations (which includes the three deaths) were caused by the vaccine.
Norwegians made the mistake of living a healthy lifestyle. Years of trans fats have prepared my body for any vaccine side effects that might come my way.
The European Medicines Agency and WHO have investigated. They said that out of 20 million Europeans vaccinated with the AZ vaccine, there have been 25 reports of blood clots associated with low platelets. They concluded that the vaccine is safe to administer but that there may be a small number of people who experience severe reactions. The issue in Norway is that they have had only 650 deaths from Covid, so these 4 deaths from the AZ vaccine (the total now is 6 hospitalized and 4 dead) stand out. All are younger than 50, which is also a factor in why younger people there might be hesitant to take the AZ vaccine now. It should also be noted that in Norway the risk of Covid infection and associated death is significantly higher than the risk of clots and death from the AZ vaccine. That only 650 Norwegians have died from Covid is striking. By comparison, I’ll contrast Norway with Utah, which also has a heathy, young population. Utah has a population of about 3.3 Million and has had just over 2,000 COVID related deaths. Norway has 5.6 Million people and has had 650 deaths.
So if Norway is worried about that then why won't their government just work out a deal with Moderna, J&J, or Pfizer? (Maybe they are but seems pretty simple in this case)
I have no idea. It could start a serious domino effect if they did. If Norway made such a deal, Sweden and Denmark almost certainly would try to. If that happens then Germany might (there is a growing concurrence with Norway in the German scientific community regarding the AZ vaccine). At that point all of the EU would have to consider the option.
They have deals with all of those (purchased through the EU) but the more vaccine the merrier. If AZ is discontinued it would delay the vaccination scheduled by 1-2 weeks so not the biggest impact, but still an impact you can avoid if it’s concluded that the rewards out weigh the risk.
Assuming that the conclusions from the Norwegian investigation are correct and the vaccine triggered the deaths, wouldn’t the bolded be incorrect as of today? As far as I am aware there hasn’t been any under 50 covid deaths for people without underlying illnesses in the country? However saying that, with variants + the hospital situation being worse now than ever, perhaps that won’t always be true? Anyway, the health authority is supposedly coming out with more info on Friday so we’ll see if they resume, discontinue, stay paused or switch the strategy on who gets the AZ vaccine like France.