29 deaths in Norway linked to vaccine?

[Lookingforwardto2021]

www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n149

Updated by Norway’s health agency to 29. What is going on? Why haven’t we heard about this in UK?

[tinselearedcow]

@GypsyLee

It's amazing how many people are buying into this vaccine and can't wait to be injected with the stuff.
Released far too soon, it doesn't even prevent the virus or the transmission.

Oh have there now been some definitive studies demonstrating this? I thought it was too early to know for sure about transmission. Can you link to them please?

[StealthPolarBear]

65? Surely that can't be right, that's far too young!
I would have thought this was about the very elderly and frail. My parents are 65 and fit and healthy.

[CoffeeandCroissant]

Life expectancy in the UK is 81, so by no measure is 75 not very old.

Life expectancy for a 75 year old in the UK is 88 years (87 years for men and 89 years for women)
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/articles/lifeexpectancycalculator/2019-06-07

[Witchend]

You need to know more than just there were 29 deaths in that age range after taking the vaccine.

What numbers had the vaccine? A bit different if it was 29/50 than if it was 29/10 000.

Who were they giving it to? If they gave it to their frailest first that is different demographics than the healthiest groups.

What numbers would you expect to die from that demographic if they hadn't had the vaccine?

For example. A GP I know was involved in a "huge numbers of deaths after poisoning at care home" scandal. It hit the national news and people were calling for enquiries, and families were speaking to papers etc.
Not once was it mentioned that this was a care home for people who were terminally ill. The people that went there had a life expectancy of less than 6 months.
Of the residents who died over that time only one had had the food poisoning.

The press seized on it and had a field day obsessing over how they'd "killed" the residents.

In order to make any comment on it you need to know a lot more, and I notice this from the article:

More than 20 000 doses of the vaccine have been administered over the past few weeks in Norway and around 400 deaths normally occur among care home residents every week.
So the percentage who died after the vaccine, if the vaccine did cause the death is 0.145%. Bearing in mind that it states they were very elderly and frail, then that's definitely a better rate than if they catch covid.

[Rachie1973]

@SchnitzelVonCrummsTum

The vax going to the frail elderly in the UK - emphasis on the frail, who are overwhelmingly in nursing homes or unable to travel for the vaccine - will likely be the Oxford / AZ one because it is more stable and can be taken to the homes. Which may be a good thing reading this...

DH (GP) had a left-over Pfizer one on Friday (extra dose left in bottom of vial when all of the elderly present had been vaccinated) and the side-effects pole-axed him for all of Saturday - felt utterly dreadful. However, he has had the virus in October (PCR confirmed) and was in hospital with it so we don't want a repeat. He feels loads better today. Quite glad that when my turn comes around it's likely to be the AZ.

Coincidence

Many of us have had the pfizer with no reaction except an achy arm.

[movingonup20]

If you take the very elderly and frail (85 + for this example) take a random sample of 1000 of this age group and some will die tomorrow statistically, so it's highly likely a number of the 4 million or whatever it is in the U.K. will die straight after being vaccinated but whether there's any link is what needs to be studied. I know several people whose drs have advised waiting for the AZ vaccine due to their medical conditions

[bobbojobbo]

Life expectancy for a 75 year old in the UK is 88 years (87 years for men and 89 years for women)

I didn't say what life expectancy for a 75 year old is, I said what life expectancy is. Understand the difference and try again

[Lockheart]

That article says 23 deaths, not 29.

And: The agency has investigated 13 of the deaths so far and concluded that common adverse reactions of mRNA vaccines, such as fever, nausea, and diarrhoea, may have contributed to fatal outcomes in some of the frail patients.

[Nanny0gg]

@Lookingforwardto2021

www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n149

Updated by Norway’s health agency to 29. What is going on? Why haven’t we heard about this in UK?

Well, I've seen it in mainstream press

[FatCatThinCat]

@Lookingforwardto2021

I am panicking just a bit. I wanted my dad to get vaccinated and he has underlying conditions. I think he is a fit oldie though, all things considered. But what is the threshold of ‘underlying conditions’ here, I wonder...

And to the pp who said it has been reported in UK newspapers, could you provide a link please? I must have missed it.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9151341/Norway-adjusts-advice-vaccine-deaths-isnt-alarmed.html

[hollyangel]

Why is it ok to brush off these deaths soon after taking the vaccine as deaths that don't matter as they probably would have happened anyway to the old and infirm?

But then the prevailing narrative since March has been that Covid deaths in the very elderly(which are the vast majority as the median age of death is people in their 80s with underlying conditions) are totally unacceptable and we must lockdown the whole country in order to prevent the deaths of these people would most likely have died that year anyway?

Doesn't make any sense to me.

[Namechangesensitiveinlaws]

Interesting to hear. An elderly parent had a bad reaction to the pneumonia vaccine recently - the Pfizer one has been linked to problems in allergy sufferers hasn't it as well.

[Lookingforwardto2021]

It may simply be a correlation or it may be causation. The Norwegian health authority are tracking and investigating. And they have made this public. As it should be.

And the German health authority are publishing how many have died after getting the vaccine and presumably using it to guide their vaccination policy.

Are we publishing similar numbers here? And who is investigating? Is it PHE?

[Oreservoir]

I did read about this last week and decided not to mention it to my df who is 90.
He’s had his first vaccine and is fine so no point putting him off having the second.
In 2019 he had two chest infections and he has asthma so pretty vulnerable either way.

[trulydelicious]

@ineedaholidaynow

If these people were end of life, rather than just elderly, can it sometimes just be a coincidence that they have died after a vaccine

They are not saying it was a 'coincidence', it appears that because they were elderly and frail they may not have been able to tolerate the side effects of the Pfizer vaccine

[MaybeNew]

Of course the medical professionals are scrutinising the roll out and side effects. That last comment of the OP’s makes me really cross. All those people who think that they can do better than trained medical professionals. I despair. Either have the vaccine or don’t but don’t pretend that you somehow know or understand the process better than a doctor or scientist.

[Inthemuckheap]

Having had 100's of staff vaccinated over the past week and a good number of elderly, vulnerable clients, we haven't had one client death of a vaccinated person, but quite a few of non-vaccinated.

The Oxford-AZ vaccine seems to be giving more side effects than the Pfizer one but I'll take whichever one is offered. None of the side effects are serious and abate within 24 hours.

[Calamitypatch]

Totally agree with you hollyangel. Totally hypocritical to suit the narrative.

StealthPolarBear
We have and there was a thread on it the other day. It seems the decision to vaccinate may need to have the benefits and risks weighed up for the most frail if the link is there.
Coincidentally, my brother in Canada told me about this yesterday. I, in Europe, hadn't heard it (probably as I am doing my ostrich imitation about much stuff at the moment). But I think it has been said all along that the risks may outweigh the value of the vaccine over a certain age? I thought I'd seen age 65 and over mentioned, as the threshold for where the risks might outdo the benefits.

If true, that's very concerning.....

[SuperHighway]

But isn't that the demographic we're trying to protect? No, we're trying to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed. Thousands of elderly people die from the flu every winter. We don't have a lockdown every winter, because the NHS can (just about) cope with demand.

[ukmail]

"DH (GP) had a left-over Pfizer one on Friday (extra dose left in bottom of vial when all of the elderly present had been vaccinated) and the side-effects pole-axed him for all of Saturday - felt utterly dreadful."

Is this such a big deal? I have the flu jab every year and probably 50% of the times I have a reaction like the one described. It's better than getting flu with the likely complications I would have. My mum had her second Covid vaccination on Saturday (she's 80) and had a sort of fluey day the day after.

[notevenat20]

Millions of people over 80 have now had the vaccine.

[Mmn654123]

There’s a big difference between the frail elderly and the very frail elderly. Most frail elderly can survive a low grade fever and a bout of diarrhoea. But for the very frail it may well be the difference between life and death. But it’s clearly a rare occurrence and physicians are being alerted to take this into consideration when weighing the risk benefit ratio in an individual. That’s what doctors do.

Not understanding the rather dramatic catastrophising statements on this thread.

[Lookingforwardto2021]

@MaybeNew

Of course the medical professionals are scrutinising the roll out and side effects. That last comment of the OP’s makes me really cross. All those people who think that they can do better than trained medical professionals. I despair. Either have the vaccine or don’t but don’t pretend that you somehow know or understand the process better than a doctor or scientist.

Ok, so where is this scrutiny happening and presumably it is published/in the public domain? Just as the way the number of COVID deaths are published?

Presumably the UK public is no less intelligent than the Norwegian one, so if the Norway health authority is publishing figures on vaccine related investigations, we should too? Bye, I am a scientist. But I think this information should be in the public domain for everyone to review as part of transparency and scrutiny of a new vaccine

[Em777]

@ofwarren

I wonder if this demographic are going to be given the Oxford instead then?

Statistically the Oxford has worse side effects.

[knittingaddict]

@GypsyLee

It's amazing how many people are buying into this vaccine and can't wait to be injected with the stuff.
Released far too soon, it doesn't even prevent the virus or the transmission.

How many more times.

It has not been rushed.

It reduces the symptoms massively and prevents severe illness and death.

What would you like to happen? I would love to hear what you would do that will help get us through this with the least number of deaths and consequences.

My parents aged 89 and 85 have had their jab. They are fine.