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?

[mumwon]

reading this article - it is more likely to be a mix of coincidence & the frailness of the individual. Extreme frailty means basically they sadly could of died naturally - they could have terminal disease - or have problems such as advanced kidney failure or heart failure.
They will check this & be aware - it will be under constant review
I think that the risk of covid is a clear & very present danger -

[asquirrel]

In 2018-19 about 230,000 over 75s died in the UK, so that's about 631 people per day. There are about 5.4million people in that age group.

Now imagine the government managed to vaccinate a tenth of that whole age group in a day (so 540,000 people). Unfortunately, we could expect a tenth of the 631, so 63 of them, will die that day too.

But it absolutely doesn't mean that they died because of the jab. We can reasonably assume that each of those people was also wearing clothes or a bird flew over the place they were in - but we know this will not have caused their death!

So while we will hear of people who unfortunately die soon after a Covid jab, this does not mean that their death was caused by it. We need to maintain some perspective, as frightening as it may seem.

(ONS data, available online with a 1-minute Google, + add up some numbers on the Excel you can download).

[Angrymum22]

Marmunia you sound like the medical negligence claim solicitor I know who claims she knows more about medicine than most doctors because of the number of medical expert reports she has read as part of her job.
The integrity of the media is well known.
The first person I know to have the vaccine was the most senior consultant in our regional ICU. They had it the week it was released. They were hoping that they wouldn’t have to go through another big wave again ( the last time we spoke was mid December). Whether you go into ICU or not depends on these consultants. Imagine the number of people they have had to turn away and how that will be with them for the rest of their lives.
Hope you are not going to be one of those lives in the future.
Vaccination is a choice, unfortunately condemning someone to death is a choice I would not like to live with. I do hope that we do not see a rise in suicide rates in medics who have had to make these decisions repetitively over the last 12 months.

[fiveoldteddies]

Reading from a norwegian website (NRK bit like bbc) 29 with side effects, of which 13 died, 9 severe reactions and 7 less severe reactions.

All were over 80 years old, all in a nursing home, some over 90. They are advising to think about whether to to vaccinate or not those who are weak and at end of life with those with severe heart failure, COPD, dementia and other

[Yohoheaveho]

people with weak health, have weak health:(

[itsgettingweird]

@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.

Good measured post.

[GettingUntrapped]

Don't forget, we all have to die.sometime. an unfortunate reality that we prefer to not think about.

[Xenia]

It is each person's choice, weighing up risks and rewards.

56 year old US doctor died after having the jab but he is pro vaccine and would not have wanted people put off having it, I'm sure.
thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/534005-pfizer-and-cdc-looking-into-death-of-doctor-who
They are looking into it - I suspect there is a link but it is not yet clear.

[Yohoheaveho]

mostly vaccination programs rely on the strong taking a hit to protect the weak
but it would be a hard sell to persuade all the young healthy poeple that they should subject themselves to a vaccine in order to reduce the level of virus in circulation so as to protect the weak who are less able to withstand any side effects

[Unsure33]

Before you jump to conclusions you need to know the total deaths against all of that age vaccinated all over the world against the1%-3% risk of dying of covid within that age group . Also I understand some who died were suffering terminal illnesses and not just underlying health problems .

Even normal flu vaccine has some risks , although minimal

Typical media headlines without full facts.

We should be grateful that all this information is being gathered.

[tootyfruitypickle]

I have a frail family member aged late 70s who avoids most vaccines due to not tolerating them well (has serious digestive issues that are extremely life limiting but no diagnosis for anything ). They would need the Oxford one . Are GP hubs all giving the Oxford one? Is the Pfizer one only in hospitals?

[Bagamoyo1]

Every single drug you ever take has potential risks and side effects, even paracetamol (which, incidentally, is an incredibly dangerous drug and would be a prescription-only medication if it was newly invented now). You have to weigh up the pros and cons every time.
Personally I’m happy to have the vaccine (I’m a GP so had it already), but if people are worried then don’t have it. No one is forcing you. But obviously you’ll have to keep worrying about Covid longer than the rest of us. Your choice.

[mindutopia]

It's not possible to interpret these deaths as in any way linked to the vaccine, as in caused by the vaccine. I work in clinical trials and we have to report every time a patient becomes ill or dies after any sort of appointment with us. If I conduct a phone interview (absolutely no medical intervention involved, just a conversation by phone) and a patient falls down the stairs the next day and dies due to brain trauma, I have to report it as a severe adverse event related to the research. It's clear it's in no way related to the research, but because it chronologically came after an interaction I had with a patient (chat on the phone), it gets logged as such. These are in healthy middle aged adults. You would of course expect very frail elderly people to die quite frequently and while it's possible that side effects may have affected them or they may have just died because they were 85 and 85 year olds have quite a high likelihood of dying, still the rate of death was probably less than if all of them had been infected with COVID, so the overall gain is positive. It doesn't mean the vaccine is dangerous, as it's still improving the overall survival rate and saving lives of many who otherwise would have died.

[GettingUntrapped]

Seems to be sensible to look at excess deaths for this time of year, compared to the usual average.

[Bagamoyo1]

@tootyfruitypickle

I have a frail family member aged late 70s who avoids most vaccines due to not tolerating them well (has serious digestive issues that are extremely life limiting but no diagnosis for anything ). They would need the Oxford one . Are GP hubs all giving the Oxford one? Is the Pfizer one only in hospitals?

We’re giving the Pfizer one to our patients, except housebound and care homes, who’ll have the Oxford one as it’s more portable.

[bouncydog]

GP’s are vaccinating our over 80’s in the surgery. I wondered why so I expect this is the reason so they can be closely monitored.

[GettingUntrapped]

@mindutopia, your reasoning makes sense. Please continue to post as we need your voice of sanity.

[Lookingforwardto2021]

@fiveoldteddies

Reading from a norwegian website (NRK bit like bbc) 29 with side effects, of which 13 died, 9 severe reactions and 7 less severe reactions.

All were over 80 years old, all in a nursing home, some over 90. They are advising to think about whether to to vaccinate or not those who are weak and at end of life with those with severe heart failure, COPD, dementia and other

From bmj linked in opening post

Doctors in Norway have been told to conduct more thorough evaluations of very frail elderly patients in line to receive the Pfizer BioNTec vaccine against covid-19, following the deaths of 23 patients shortly after receiving the vaccine.

“It may be a coincidence, but we aren’t sure,” Steinar Madsen, medical director of the Norwegian Medicines Agency (NOMA), told The BMJ. “There is no certain connection between these deaths and the vaccine.”

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.

[trulydelicious]

Why is everyone hysterically burying their heads in the sand in relation to this issue, wishing it hadn't been made public?

Let them conduct the relevant investigation and determine if there was causation or not before jumping to conclusions

[Fernie6491]

My DH and I both had our first Pfizer jab on Friday (aged 73/74 and reasonably fit and active). The only side effect was a slightly tender arm at the injection site., so hopefully that will be all.

[tootyfruitypickle]

@bagamoyo1 thank you , I’ll have to talk to them and suggest they talk to their GP. I’d assumed the Oxford one was the one most people were getting . Not worried about fever - it’s the nausea issues that are a concern.

[Grobagsforever]

@Lookingforwardto2021

My relative who has been advised by his doctor not to take the vaccine is in his 80s, with underlying conditions. But he is fit, before Covid restrictions, he used to play golf every week.

He would have no problem going to a GP surgery for a jab

@Lookingforwardto2021 I'd report the GP in this instance. It is essential old people are vaccinated or the rest of us have to live in lockdown indefinitely. The GP is highly irresponsible spreading unsubstantiated codswallsp.

[Xerochrysum]

I started to feel like there are people deliberately trying to scare people off taking vaccine. Luckily we do have many knowledgeable posters who can give us info and level headed advice to counter act these posts. But seriously, it's getting tedious.

[Lookingforwardto2021]

@trulydelicious

Why is everyone hysterically burying their heads in the sand in relation to this issue, wishing it hadn't been made public?

Let them conduct the relevant investigation and determine if there was causation or not before jumping to conclusions

Yes!
And to those saying we have had no deaths correlated with the vaccine, well is that because Norway is an anomaly? We have vaccinated the same demographic with the same vaccine

Or is it that this info is not collected/ made public here?

I repeat, the main thing is to have transparency. Make the data public without sensationalism and without minimising it either. It is definitely something that requires scrutiny

[Lookingforwardto2021]

@Grobagsforever, why would he report his go for advising that in his case the vaccine is risky? That’s what the Norway health authority seems to be advising, for doctors to have that conversation. He is in Germany and they seem to be cautious