What exactly is happening with AstraZeneca?

robinph · 02-04-2021 12:12PM

murphaph wrote: »

If true the figure should be noteworthy.

It means they found a 11000000:5 (1 in 2.2million) chance in the older cohort (they are vaccinating by age in the UK) and then the chance reduced to 7000000:25 (1 in 280k) as they started vaccinating people in their 50s.

If the trend continues I see no reason why they won't be hitting the rates experienced in Germany.

Will they just plough ahead though or try to get an alternative mRNA vaccine for younger people?

If the odds end up at 1 in 20k like in Norway, who is going to let their kids be injected with that? (assuming children are affected to the same or worse extent as young adults)

They have been vaccinating people from age 18 upwards since the start in the UK. About 12 million of the 32 million who have had their first jab are aged between 18 and 64, assuming most care home workers and nurses have retired by that age if not sooner as the pension age only changed recently.

There are more people in the potentially at risk group from the vaccine who have been vaccinated in the UK than the entirity of the vaccinated in Germany from all brands of jab.

astrofool · 02-04-2021 12:15PM

murphaph wrote: »

If true the figure should be noteworthy.

It means they found a 11000000:5 (1 in 2.2million) chance in the older cohort (they are vaccinating by age in the UK) and then the chance reduced to 7000000:25 (1 in 280k) as they started vaccinating people in their 50s.

If the trend continues I see no reason why they won't be hitting the rates experienced in Germany.

Will they just plough ahead though or try to get an alternative mRNA vaccine for younger people?

If the odds end up at 1 in 20k like in Norway, who is going to let their kids be injected with that? (assuming children are affected to the same or worse extent as young adults)

I'd imagine the procedure will be to highlight susceptible individuals ahead of time and either have a more specific follow up afterwards (if this happens, take this), or have an alternate vaccine available for them.

Melanchthon · 02-04-2021 01:11PM

murphaph wrote: »

If true the figure should be noteworthy.

It means they found a 11000000:5 (1 in 2.2million) chance in the older cohort (they are vaccinating by age in the UK) and then the chance reduced to 7000000:25 (1 in 280k) as they started vaccinating people in their 50s.

If the trend continues I see no reason why they won't be hitting the rates experienced in Germany.

Will they just plough ahead though or try to get an alternative mRNA vaccine for younger people?

If the odds end up at 1 in 20k like in Norway, who is going to let their kids be injected with that? (assuming children are affected to the same or worse extent as young adults)

With the striking apparent sex difference in reactions to it you would hope it will be narrowed down to something like it's effecting woman taking the Pill.

As I understand it and chatted to a medical professional acquaintance about this, the problem is that the confirmed cases are so low that they really can't say anything apart from the age thing at the minute hence why it's not being restricted by sex despite this seeming like a big risk factor.

Another tangential effect of this is even more reduced compliance among younger people as it highlights just how low the Covid risk is too younger people.

murphaph · 02-04-2021 01:41PM

robinph wrote: »

They have been vaccinating people from age 18 upwards since the start in the UK. About 12 million of the 32 million who have had their first jab are aged between 18 and 64, assuming most care home workers and nurses have retired by that age if not sooner as the pension age only changed recently.

But the health care workers were almost certainly vaccinated with Biontech as they were done in the first or second group and the Biontech vaccine was in the UK first. Once those people were done, the UK embarked (quite correctly IMO) on a simple older->younger vaccination strategy. As younger people are now being vaccinated with AZ in numbers, the trend seems to indicate an increase in CSVT events. This is not surprising, it replicates the experiences of countries that have vaccinated more people in younger age groups with AZ.

murphaph · 02-04-2021 01:44PM

Melanchthon wrote: »

With the striking apparent sex difference in reactions to it you would hope it will be narrowed down to something like it's effecting woman taking the Pill.

As I understand it and chatted to a medical professional acquaintance about this, the problem is that the confirmed cases are so low that they really can't say anything apart from the age thing at the minute hence why it's not being restricted by sex despite this seeming like a big risk factor.

Another tangential effect of this is even more reduced compliance among younger people as it highlights just how low the Covid risk is too younger people.

It would be a good outcome indeed if we could isolate it to women on the pill. That would be easy to work around and AZ could continue playing an important role worldwide.

robinph · 02-04-2021 02:15PM

murphaph wrote: »

But the health care workers were almost certainly vaccinated with Biontech as they were done in the first or second group and the Biontech vaccine was in the UK first. Once those people were done, the UK embarked (quite correctly IMO) on a simple older->younger vaccination strategy. As younger people are now being vaccinated with AZ in numbers, the trend seems to indicate an increase in CSVT events. This is not surprising, it replicates the experiences of countries that have vaccinated more people in younger age groups with AZ.

Kind of... But... There were 4 million care home or front line medical staff in early vaccine groups, but another 8.5 million people aged between 18-64/70 who were in the clinically vulnerable groups or just parents of clinically vulnerable children for example. Of the people I know in the earlier care or medical groups most did get the Pfizer, but not all and there is about 15 million in the early groups, including the over 70s, but only just over 10 million Pfizer vaccines handed out.

murphaph · 02-04-2021 03:14PM

It would be trivial for the UK to make the age groups and vaccine received available but for some reason the UK is not all that transparent when it comes to publishing this sort of information.

Suffice to say, some young people have received the AZ vaccination in the UK and remember, they did have a few cases of CSVT and that's let's say before they really started looking for them. It's quite possible a few 50 year olds were diagnosed with regular strokes.

If the next tranche of data shows a further chance of CSVT reduction as the cohorts get younger, people will begin to get more anxious.

I find it really shocking that this still hasn't been reported upon (somewhere not hidden) on the BBC. That's deliberate IMO.

robinph · 02-04-2021 03:19PM

murphaph wrote: »

I find it really shocking that this still hasn't been reported upon (somewhere not hidden) on the BBC. That's deliberate IMO.

It's the top article under the Coronavirus tab of the BBC News app for me.

murphaph · 02-04-2021 03:27PM

Strange. On the website after a refresh of https://www.bbc.com/news/coronavirus I see the story from yesterday is still in first place, this one: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56594189

It was written before the new information from the MHRA was published and doesn't reference it.

Call me Al · 02-04-2021 03:34PM

I don't see this new data explained anywhere on the BBC website.

robinph · 02-04-2021 03:34PM

Sorry, they had it stuck under the Health category rather than Coronavirus which is a bit less obvious admitedly. It's there though.

Call me Al · 02-04-2021 03:42PM

robinph wrote: »

Sorry, they had it stuck under the Health category rather than Coronavirus which is a bit less obvious admitedly. It's there though.

Yes.
Latest updates. Right down the bottom.
32 minutes ago.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56616119

Tyrone212 · 02-04-2021 03:57PM

Netherlands suspends AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine for people below the age of 60 after 5 local cases of rare blood clots, including 1 death.

Kivaro · 02-04-2021 04:10PM

No surprise that the Netherlands is suspending Astrazeneca vaccine for the under 60s. I said a couple of days ago that this thread would become a popular one because of news like this and the fact that Ireland is heavily vested in AZ in our vaccine rollout. The HSE are relying on it for the substantial numbers that they expect to vaccinate in the coming 3 months. If we suspend Astrazeneca in Ireland, it will cause havoc here. But it has to be in the minds of the decision-makers on whether to suspend that particular vaccine again.

Strazdas · 02-04-2021 04:16PM

Tyrone212 wrote: »

Netherlands suspends AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine for people below the age of 60 after 5 local cases of rare blood clots, including 1 death.

From 400k doses given apparently.

Looking at the German and Dutch stats, the UK should have seen around 180 blood clot cases by now. It's not entirely clear why their rate is about six times lower (different age cohorts or something?).

titan18 · 02-04-2021 04:41PM

Kivaro wrote: »

No surprise that the Netherlands is suspending Astrazeneca vaccine for the under 60s. I said a couple of days ago that this thread would become a popular one because of news like this and the fact that Ireland is heavily vested in AZ in our vaccine rollout. The HSE are relying on it for the substantial numbers that they expect to vaccinate in the coming 3 months. If we suspend Astrazeneca in Ireland, it will cause havoc here. But it has to be in the minds of the decision-makers on whether to suspend that particular vaccine again.

Tbf if we do what Netherlands do and suspend it for under 60s, it would have no real impact for a month at least if we just give Pfizer vaccines to the at risk under 60s and give AZ to the older group instead.

murphaph · 02-04-2021 04:44PM

Tyrone212 wrote: »

Netherlands suspends AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine for people below the age of 60 after 5 local cases of rare blood clots, including 1 death.

All women too.

Charles Babbage · 02-04-2021 04:45PM

Kivaro wrote: »

No surprise that the Netherlands is suspending Astrazeneca vaccine for the under 60s. I said a couple of days ago that this thread would become a popular one because of news like this and the fact that Ireland is heavily vested in AZ in our vaccine rollout. The HSE are relying on it for the substantial numbers that they expect to vaccinate in the coming 3 months. If we suspend Astrazeneca in Ireland, it will cause havoc here. But it has to be in the minds of the decision-makers on whether to suspend that particular vaccine again.

AZ will make up less than 25% of Ireland's vaccine rollout, although it might be bigger proportion in April. So unless Boris sends a shipload of vaccine or AZ decides to honour its commitments then we can work around this problem, especially as for the next two months we will still mostly be vaccinating people over 60. So it won't cause havoc.

murphaph · 02-04-2021 04:46PM

titan18 wrote: »

Tbf if we do what Netherlands do and suspend it for under 60s, it would have no real impact for a month at least if we just give Pfizer vaccines to the at risk under 60s and give AZ to the older group instead.

That's why Ireland should make the call now to use up our AZ stocks in over 60s, perhaps in men only too.

Kivaro · 02-04-2021 04:47PM

titan18 wrote: »

Tbf if we do what Netherlands do and suspend it for under 60s, it would have no real impact for a month at least if we just give Pfizer vaccines to the at risk under 60s and give AZ to the older group instead.

Possibly. It depends on the amount of vaccines we are expected to get from Pfizer in the coming months. Astrazenica is a lot easier for the HSE to roll out, and we were promised a major ramp up of delivery by the manufacturer. The projections for the coming months were based on that.

titan18 · 02-04-2021 04:50PM

Kivaro wrote: »

Possibly. It depends on the amount of vaccines we are expected to get from Pfizer in the coming months. Astrazenica is a lot easier for the HSE to roll out, and we were promised a major ramp up of delivery by the manufacturer. The projections for the coming months were based on that.

True, if we made the decision to use AZ on over 60s now, we'd probably have a good 4 weeks of just vaccinating them with it before we need to go younger, and more data might be there then.

brendanwalsh · 02-04-2021 04:53PM

Would ye take it if offered ?

Charles Babbage · 02-04-2021 04:54PM

murphaph wrote: »

That's why Ireland should make the call now to use up our AZ stocks in over 60s, perhaps in men only too.

Since more men die of Covid you could even speed up the vaccination of men, although the woke crowd likely wouldn't approve of that.

Kivaro wrote:

Possibly. It depends on the amount of vaccines we are expected to get from Pfizer in the coming months. Astrazenica is a lot easier for the HSE to roll out, and we were promised a major ramp up of delivery by the manufacturer. The projections for the coming months were based on that.

I don't believe AZ will ever ramp up supply. Biontech have just opened a new factory and aim to have a capacity of 2.5Bn vaccines per annum, I would bank on them supplying more (as they have said they would). Moderan have a new factory and will make a smaller contribution and also J&J will come into the picture, modestly in April but in a bigger way by June.

The cold store requirements for Biontech vaccine have been reduced and J&J is easy enough to handle and only needs one shot.

titan18 · 02-04-2021 04:54PM

brendanwalsh wrote: »

Would ye take it if offered ?

At this stage, I would strongly prefer another. Not even just cos of the side effects but more that these vaccination passes are being done based on 2 weeks after second dose so unless that changes you're waiting a long time for the AZ one to kick in for that.

mick087 · 02-04-2021 04:55PM

brendanwalsh wrote: »

Would ye take it if offered ?

Yes, i would be at my Drs 5 minutes after i got phone call

Call me Al · 02-04-2021 05:04PM

brendanwalsh wrote: »

Would ye take it if offered ?

Right now, female, under 50... I'd rather any of the others over it.

But I'd prefer not to get it even without the clotting issues that have arisen.
The 12 weeks wait isn't ideal, not to mention the lower level efficacy v Pfizer/Moderna.
But i'm not going to be offered anything any time soon so I can wait and see how this evolves..

trashcan · 02-04-2021 05:11PM

Call me Al wrote: »

Right now, female, under 50... I'd rather any of the others over it.

But I'd prefer not to get it even without the clotting issues that have arisen.
The 12 weeks wait isn't ideal, not to mention the lower level efficacy v Pfizer/Moderna.
But i'm not going to be offered anything any time soon so I can wait and see how this evolves..

I’d prefer one of the others too, to be honest. More reports of blood clots today.

appledrop · 02-04-2021 05:15PM

trashcan wrote: »

I’d prefer one of the others too, to be honest. More reports of blood clots today.

At the moment as female of childbearing age I'd prefer not to get.

Blood clots are very serious and I'm sure there has to be a connection with either female hormones or people on pill.

Going by new age system I'll be waiting for my vaccine anyway so hopefully more data by that stage!

If I was offered it tomorrow no I wouldn't take it.

02-04-2021 05:15PM

Husband got a call to get the vaccine Tuesday in Cork City Hall. He will be happy to take any but I am just wondering if anyone knows which one it will be? I am more concerned about the 12 week wait for him to be fully covered with him being high risk.

Strazdas · 02-04-2021 05:17PM

Charles Babbage wrote: »

AZ will make up less than 25% of Ireland's vaccine rollout, although it might be bigger proportion in April. So unless Boris sends a shipload of vaccine or AZ decides to honour its commitments then we can work around this problem, especially as for the next two months we will still mostly be vaccinating people over 60. So it won't cause havoc.

That's a good point. Very few people under the age of 60 have been vaccinated with AZ, which might explain why we're not hearing about blood clots.

Given that we will soon have four vaccines, one would have thought this situation would be perfectly manageable.

What exactly is happening with AstraZeneca?

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