CV and mad panic behaviour

[LP]

What do they hope to achieve by a two week suspension?

It's meaningless, the alleged numbers are so low from vaccinations that have taken weeks and/or months to issue almost nothing can be achieved by the suspension. As I predicted earlier today, some sites are now reporting it's just two batches they are worried about.

What they will probably eventually state in a week or two is that the incidence of blood clots in people being vaccinated AstraZeneca doesn't deviate from the global mean, not different to any other vaccine, injection, procedure or head count. But they already know that from the 17 million AstraZeneca doses handed out in the UK, that doesn't mean any vaccine or procedure gets to avoid vigilance.

[LP]

Yes but given how we've responded to the covid threat you would think we'd take the same precautions with the vaccine.

It's very hard to build confidence in something you have been told is perfectly safe until it isn't and countries start suspending its administration and you are still told its perfectly safe.

Meanwhile any other assertion is dismissed as a conspiracy theory yet here we are trying to believe one assertion over the other.

The only assertion I can make with some accuracy is that we are indeed not being told the whole truth and I'd be correct more often than not.

It's not dismissed as a conspiracy theory that is social media talk, and there are plenty of precautions being taken more than is usual.

The scientific consensus is the the alleged rate is so low it's not more than is predicted by the epidemiology of a cohort that is the same size, and that it doesn't warrant the suspension issued primarily by bureaucrats and politicians.

The problem is the case being argued to stop vaccination bears no great validity, and the points made to support that stop can actually be equally applied to both sides of the debate for and against for a net effect of zero. You cannot just selectively apply those points to one side of the debate, they have to be applied equally to both and the result them becomes null.

What isn't symmetrical is that one side of this debate is supported by the weight of vaccination numbers, which is a fact not a conspiracy or opinion.

[ElwoodBlues1]

I can kind of see where LP is coming from. We don't know whether those decisions to suspend the AZ vaccine are purely political, somewhat political, how much heed they have paid to their in house scientists etc. Perhaps European scientists are more risk averse.

The numbers for blood clotting etc. seem very low, but it is far too early to be drawing solid conclusions. 

What do they hope to achieve by a two week suspension ?

Dont think the South African scrapping of the vaccine had anything to do with politics, it failed testing with regards their own strain
and will cost them more having switched in the main to the Johnson/Johnson vaccine.
Herd immunity is fine until the herd stragglers who get picked off by a blood clot or other failure are one of your family, maybe these other countries value the lives of their citizens a bit more and are prepared to put more work into thorough testing than looking to save a dollar than some other nations.
Its also very choice when your Prime Minister sprukes the vaccine with the problems but he and his ministers have all had the alternate ie the Pfizer.....very Mary Antoinette.... let the people have the AstraZ.....

[LP]

Dont think the South African scrapping of the vaccine had anything to do with politics, it failed testing with regards their own strain
and will cost them more having switched in the main to the Johnson/Johnson vaccine.

How did the replication trials of the Sth African result go, nobody it seems has been able to come out and support the Sth African result so far and several countries are testing the strain!

The official position is this;

A small study of 2,000 people in South Africa has shown that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine offers minimal protection against mild cases of the South African variant.

The study, which was based people of an average age of 31, shows that protection may be as low as 10%. The research wasn’t able to determine whether it protects against serious illness or hospitalisation, because this group of people were at low risk of serious illness. Other research suggests that the vaccine is still likely to reduce severe cases and deaths from the South African strain. More research is needed in this area.

Oxford University is working on adapting the vaccine to ensure that it protects against this variant, as well as other strains. They have said a ‘booster’ jab could be available by autumn 2021.

There are currently only a small number of cases of the South African variant, and governments have put measures in place to minimise community spread of this variant.

[PaulP]

He didn't lose you after his toddlers choking on carrots anology?

I must have missed it. The point being, it is not unreasonable to speculate whether the suspensions are more influenced by politics or science, given the current circumstances and given what we know about how both science and politics operate. I'm not saying LP or anyone else is right or wrong. But it's a fair question IMO.

[PaulP]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...usal-links

"It’s human nature to spot patterns in data. But we should be careful about finding causal links where none may exist"

[ElwoodBlues1]

How did the replication trials of the Sth African result go, nobody it seems has been able to come out and support the Sth African result so far and several countries are testing the strain!

The official position is this;

They scrapped it and its going to cost them money... They must have some serious doubts.

[PaulP]

https://theconversation.com/data-suggest...out-157137

Another article suggesting we should not pause the AZ rollout.

[ElwoodBlues1]

https://theconversation.com/data-suggest...out-157137

Another article suggesting we should not pause the AZ rollout.

I guess the government signing a deal with CSL for 50 Million doses might also encourage Scott and crew to keep pushing it as safe. Looks like a few of his backbenchers don't agree and want it suspended..

[PaulP]

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/...ca-vaccine

The whole article is well worth reading, but I found the following particularly interesting :

AstraZeneca riskier than Pfizer?
AstraZeneca said its safety results for blood clotting conditions were “similar across other licensed COVID-19 vaccines”.

Professor Stephen Evans from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said the latest publicly available data showed there were 35 reported cases of thrombocytopenia (a low blood platelet disorder) out of 54,000 “yellow card” reports after nearly 10 million AstraZeneca vaccinations.

For the Pfizer vaccine there were 22 cases out of 33,000 reports and almost 11 million doses administered.

Prof Evans said: “It is clear that the proportion of reports for this bleeding disorder is not different in the two vaccines.”