What exactly is happening with AstraZeneca?

Seems increasingly obvious that the recommendations coming from NIAC are not based on so called scientific advice. How can the AZ vaccine be unsuitable a couple of months ago for those under 60 and now suddenly when spare capacity shows up, suddenly it is suitable for this 18-40 age group???

Clearly what they've been at, is managing vaccine supplies and allocating them in a way that would preclude any element of public choice as to what vaccine to take as much as possible. When they perceived a while back they had c 800,000 doses of AZ and a population of c 400K in their 60s - they decided to allocate AZ to this cohort and used the rare clotting issue to justify this. Now when it seems they will have spare AZ capacity, suddenly those difficulties for younger people start to evaporate.

Bottom line is, you can't believe a word out of the public health systems mouth in these regards. They are just manipulating the population, perhaps for the benefit of all, but still manipulating.

Marine Layer wrote: »

Reason IS actually science
The balance of risk vs reward has changed
The risk was always as infinitesimally small anyway as the abundancy of caution was huge

Rubbish - gives us the figures and prove that mathematically. As you say the risk was 'infinitesimally small' before and now. The only changing factor is the supplies of various vaccines available to the state.

So they have misled the public to suit the distribution of a vaccination programme. If they were honest from the start and laid that out, it'd be one thing. But they didn't and thus have undermined confidence in any thinking person.

The sheep will always believe in what they are fed.

Furze99 wrote: »

Seems increasingly obvious that the recommendations coming from NIAC are not based on so called scientific advice. How can the AZ vaccine be unsuitable a couple of months ago for those under 60 and now suddenly when spare capacity shows up, suddenly it is suitable for this 18-40 age group???

Clearly what they've been at, is managing vaccine supplies and allocating them in a way that would preclude any element of public choice as to what vaccine to take as much as possible. When they perceived a while back they had c 800,000 doses of AZ and a population of c 400K in their 60s - they decided to allocate AZ to this cohort and used the rare clotting issue to justify this. Now when it seems they will have spare AZ capacity, suddenly those difficulties for younger people start to evaporate.

Bottom line is, you can't believe a word out of the public health systems mouth in these regards. They are just manipulating the population, perhaps for the benefit of all, but still manipulating.

I don't agree that it was done deliberately to change who gets what vaccine but I do think the modelling and risk assessments were likely to have been based on non real world parameters.
Basically that the risk from Covid doesn't justify the risk of death/brain damage for under X age due to low presence of Covid in the population.

This was only occuring because Ireland was in a strict lockdown at the time.
Basically their model only worked if the country stayed under hard lockdown until what September/October. It shows the level of control they thought they had on government policy and their agenda when they thought Ireland would continue a hard lockdown when Ireland already has had restrictions that are globally unique in their length.

Furze99 wrote: »

Seems increasingly obvious that the recommendations coming from NIAC are not based on so called scientific advice. How can the AZ vaccine be unsuitable a couple of months ago for those under 60 and now suddenly when spare capacity shows up, suddenly it is suitable for this 18-40 age group???

Clearly what they've been at, is managing vaccine supplies and allocating them in a way that would preclude any element of public choice as to what vaccine to take as much as possible. When they perceived a while back they had c 800,000 doses of AZ and a population of c 400K in their 60s - they decided to allocate AZ to this cohort and used the rare clotting issue to justify this. Now when it seems they will have spare AZ capacity, suddenly those difficulties for younger people start to evaporate.

Bottom line is, you can't believe a word out of the public health systems mouth in these regards. They are just manipulating the population, perhaps for the benefit of all, but still manipulating.

All that political bollox is coming home to roost now.

fly_agaric wrote: »

"They" are trying to get as much of population vaccinated against Covid-19 as rapidly as possible but were and are limited by supply. It's a disturbing concept in this era of plenty.

There isn't enough vaccine to actually do the job immediately, let alone enough to give everyone their choice of "flavours" + what they fancy as is the usual situation for us consumer/citizens of the rich Western democracies.

The limited 'blood clot' issues with AZ were well understood a few months ago. The 16-12-8-4 week (take your pick, they keep changing their mind) gap between AZ vaccines was well understood. The proposed supplies of various vaccines was understood. The numbers in the various age cohorts were well known. The implications of all these were predictable then.

But instead of being honest with the population, NIAC and the government came up with this speel that AZ wouldn't be used on over 70s and couldn't be used for 'safety reasons' on under 60s. That was their justification to assign this as a general vaccine to those in their 60s. This turns out to be complete bullsh*t - they could easily have used AZ on younger age cohorts. And of course, did for other groups as in healthcare workers.

The bottom line is that this undermines public confidence - it can be seen that the health authorities are making it up to suit and justify their plans. I don't know about you but I don't like to be taken for a patsy. You can't trust public health information anymore, if you ever could.

Furze99 wrote: »

The limited 'blood clot' issues with AZ were well understood a few months ago. The 16-12-8-4 week (take your pick, they keep changing their mind) gap between AZ vaccines was well understood. The proposed supplies of various vaccines was understood. The numbers in the various age cohorts were well known. The implications of all these were predictable then.

But instead of being honest with the population, NIAC and the government came up with this speel that AZ wouldn't be used on over 70s and couldn't be used for 'safety reasons' on under 60s. That was their justification to assign this as a general vaccine to those in their 60s. This turns out to be complete bullsh*t - they could easily have used AZ on younger age cohorts. And of course, did for other groups as in healthcare workers.

The bottom line is that this undermines public confidence - it can be seen that the health authorities are making it up to suit and justify their plans. I don't know about you but I don't like to be taken for a patsy. You can't trust public health information anymore, if you ever could.

There are solid reasons why the recommendations could change, and we've seen it happen in many countries.

First of all you have the risk of the vaccine having serious side effects - this varies by demographic and is something that we learn about more as more results are studied all over the world.

Then you have the risk of having serious side effects due to the disease. This varies based on your chance of first of all catching the disease, which varies based on lockdown rules that are imposed, what your job is, how many other people are vaccinated, what variants have appeared. It also varies based on your age and any other conditions you may have which affect the chances of having a serious impact if you do.

You have to weight those against each other (also taking efficacy into account), and you also have to factor in time and other vaccine availability - maybe having a higher risk is acceptable if another safer vaccine is available in a few weeks, but is not acceptable if another vaccine is not available for a longer time period.

You also need to factor in the herd immunity contribution of the vaccination - maybe for one person the risk of AZ is similar to the risk of COV-19, but over thousands of people it will ultimately save lives because unlike the virus it is not contagious.

All of these variables are constantly changing as lockdown rules change, more people get vaccinated, availability of other vaccines change, new variants like the delta variant appear, and more data becomes available.

It's not a simple case of "AZ was no good then but it is good now" - many many factors need to be considered, though I suspect the overriding one is the arrival of the delta variant which weighs the risk factor of Covid more heavily.

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Boris and Tories is not Brits

Criticising politician who famously said “let the bodies pile up” is not a criticism of 60 odd million people half of whom hate this lot at top

The Brits gave him a majority. He has been endorsed by them. It's like when people say the Russians or the Americans. Only in this case, the fellas incompetence was on show and the people doubled down and gave the boob a majority. It is sadly a representation of the electorate.

Furze99 wrote: »

Rubbish - gives us the figures and prove that mathematically. As you say the risk was 'infinitesimally small' before and now. The only changing factor is the supplies of various vaccines available to the state.

So they have misled the public to suit the distribution of a vaccination programme. If they were honest from the start and laid that out, it'd be one thing. But they didn't and thus have undermined confidence in any thinking person.

The sheep will always believe in what they are fed.

Risk of a very serious side effect of 1 in 100,000 or even 1 in 200,000 - is not infenitesimally small. In the <40 years group it could be even higher, and indeed was in both Norway and Germany.

As I said, if you plan administering 1 billion+ doses, the EU as a whole, why would you not prefer a different available vaccine without this risk? You are talking about 5-10k preventable adverse events, with % of fatalities. Why would you accept that if there's an option to avoid it?

And the likely better efficacy against variants is just a bonus.

If there were no other vaccines available then I agree that the benefits outweigh the risk. But with mRNA supply available, it's very questionable and unacceptable in my opinion.

I’m 35 and got my 1st AZ dose 16+ weeks ago. I’ve rung HSE Live 3 times and explained I’m not comfortable receiving a 2nd dose of AZ (reports of blood clots only emerged after I got my first dose), yet I keep being offered AZ. I did ask them to stop offering me appointments, yet they keep coming. I understand the HSE’s stance is if you had one AZ, you should take a second. But a chance of death for 1 in 250,000 for people in their 30s doesn’t sit well with me. I’m really careful taking precautions outside of my household. I can’t get over the latest recommendations for over 18s to be given AZ.

Are there many others like me who have refused a 2nd dose? I’m happy to continue to put my social life on hold until I’m offered an alternative vaccine. Hard to tell what the future will bring…. It’s really stressing me out!

Does anyone have a link to the latest AZ clot stats for Ireland? I read in this thread that the Irish Independent reported less than 5 AZ related clots and no deaths on 29/05/21.

sweet-rasmus wrote: »

I’m 35 and got my 1st AZ dose 16+ weeks ago. I’ve rung HSE Live 3 times and explained I’m not comfortable receiving a 2nd dose of AZ (reports of blood clots only emerged after I got my first dose), yet I keep being offered AZ. I did ask them to stop offering me appointments, yet they keep coming. I understand the HSE’s stance is if you had one AZ, you should take a second. But a chance of death for 1 in 250,000 for people in their 30s doesn’t sit well with me. I’m really careful taking precautions outside of my household. I can’t get over the latest recommendations for over 18s to be given AZ.

Are there many others like me who have refused a 2nd dose? I’m happy to continue to put my social life on hold until I’m offered an alternative vaccine. Hard to tell what the future will bring…. It’s really stressing me out!

Does anyone have a link to the latest AZ clot stats for Ireland? I read in this thread that the Irish Independent reported less than 5 AZ related clots and no deaths on 29/05/21.

You could be waiting a while, really until excess Pfizer and Moderna stock is available, you'll keep being offered AZ as there is no alternative to give you after one dose of AZ (mixed dosing regimes aren't approved and are still going through studies, from a safety perspective they look worse as you've got a risk of two sets of side effects, effectiveness against COVID may be slightly better than a non-mixed dose strategy).

I don't believe there has been any fatal blood clot incidents in Ireland and the diagnosis and treatment for the very few people who do have this reaction is improving all the time (which is another part of the reduced risk equation).

astrofool wrote: »

You could be waiting a while, really until excess Pfizer and Moderna stock is available, you'll keep being offered AZ as there is no alternative to give you after one dose of AZ (mixed dosing regimes aren't approved and are still going through studies, from a safety perspective they look worse as you've got a risk of two sets of side effects, effectiveness against COVID may be slightly better than a non-mixed dose strategy).

I don't believe there has been any fatal blood clot incidents in Ireland and the diagnosis and treatment for the very few people who do have this reaction is improving all the time (which is another part of the reduced risk equation).

Yes I think the death and serious injury rate from complications due to the vaccine was higher at the start, before people know what to look out for.
But in any case the risk is very low compared to the catching the virus, for all but the very youngest and healthiest.