It’s hard to put into words just how remarkably bad this situation with the AstraZeneca vaccine is, but they pay me the big bucks to try. So here goes. Let’s start with the Irish Times:
A string of countries across Europe have temporarily halted AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccinations until reports of blood clots are reviewed, a setback for inoculations across the continent that national authorities described as a difficult decision that was necessary due to an abundance of caution.
The European Medicines Agency said it was examining the reports in close co-operation with experts in blood disorders, the pharmaceutical company, and national medical regulators including that of Britain, where about 11 million doses of the vaccine have been administered.
“Vaccines for Covid-19 help to protect individuals from becoming ill, especially healthcare professionals and vulnerable populations, such as older people or those with chronic diseases,” the EMA said in a statement.
“While its investigation is ongoing, EMA currently remains of the view that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in preventing Covid-19 . . . outweigh the risks of side-effects.”
That last line is key to understanding this whole situation. So far, the reasons for the suspension relate to four – yes, four – cases of unexplained blood clots in young people in Norway who had taken the AstraZeneca vaccine. It’s worth noting, at this point, that 23 million people in the United Kingdom, our nearest neighbour, have received doses of the AstraZenica vaccine. Out of those twenty three million, there have been no cases of blood clots reported.
Indeed, AstraZeneca points out that in a study of 17 million people who received their vaccine across various countries, there have been a total of fifteen events of Deep Vein Thrombosis, and twenty two events of pulmonary embolism. That’s not to say the vaccine caused these events, mind you – they are about what you’d expect in a population that size, especially since the cohort of people who have received the vaccination skews considerably older. Take a sample of 17 million old people anywhere in the world, over the course of a few weeks, and you will find a good collection of blood clots. It’s one of the risks of being old.
This brings us to the risk/reward calculation. Ireland has suspended administration of the vaccine on a day when, it says, Covid cases are rising again. The death rate from Coronavirus, if somebody gets it, is, in Ireland, 0.019%. (227,000 cases, about 4,500 deaths) In other words, about one in a hundred patients die.
Even assuming that the AstraZeneca problem is real, we’ve had four deaths reported out of well in excess of twenty million vaccinations. That’s a death rate of way less than one in a million. In other words, even in the worst case scenario, the vaccine is about ten thousand times safer than Covid 19 itself.
Here’s the other point: The vaccine is not compulsory. People are more than able, with the information available to them, to make an informed choice. Tell them that there’s a small risk of blood clotting events, and what symptoms to watch out for, and let them decide themselves, is surely a decent idea, no? Apparently not.
There’s great suspicion, naturally, in the UK press that this whole thing is entirely political. The theory goes like this: EU Governments, including the one in Dublin, are coming under huge pressure because of the cock-up they’ve made in rolling out the vaccine. What better way to explain away the delays than to have a nice scare story about vaccine safety, which casts the UK Government as irresponsible, and, purely coincidentally, impacts the share price of a company who outwitted the EU in the contract negotiations about supplying the vaccine.
These aren’t just the views of a random website editor, either: Professor Luke O’Neill, as we reported last evening, shares them:
Luke O’Neill, a professor of biochemistry at Trinity College Dublin, has told Newstalk that he is “disappointed” with the “very disturbing” decision to suspend the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Ireland pending an investigation into blood clots in several Norwegian recipients.
30,000 AstraZeneca vaccines will not now be administered in the coming days as a result, something O’Neill claims will put lives at risk.
“They are not trusting the science,” he said.
“17 million people have had this vaccine and there is no evidence of any kind that it is causing blood clots.
“And even worse, we know the virus itself causes blood clots – there is a high risk of that – so they are putting 30,000 people at risk now who aren’t getting vaccinated this week, so I think it is very disturbing to be honest.”
The risk/reward calculations by the Dublin Government here are all wrong. But they’ve been wrong about the risk/reward calculations from the very beginning: We have had the longest lockdown in Europe, and some of the worst death rates amongst the vulnerable in Europe.
This decision is farcical. We’re now being more cautious than the European Medicines Agency, which is actually in charge of vaccine safety.