Ireland halting the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine

[Kaylasmum49]

This just came up on my phone. I had the AZ vaccine 10 days ago. I'm concerned about the news of blood clotting issues.

While obviously concerning, there seems to be a relatively small number of cases like this in Europe with no proof of a link to the vaccine yet which is why they are pausing to investigate. Considering the millions of doses administered in the UK, I am not aware of any reports of this here.

I remember some of your other posts. So glad you got the vaccine. Don’t worry, this relates to similar decisions in Scandinavia and Austria. There were decisions to suspend a batch (that was delivered to EU, not U.K.) while they investigated, but all regulators have said they expect the issues to be unrelated, but out of an abundance of caution some have halted vaccinations pending investigation.

Here’s the EU medicines regulator’s take on it.

www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca-prac-investigating-cases-thromboembolic-events-vaccines-benefits

I’m having mine in about an hour ! I did hear bbc podcast ‘more or less’ on this issue and was reassured hearing medical statisticians discussing the figures. Also the most recent episode was interesting on obesity/Covid headlines and what the underlying figures actually mean.
Good luck everyone.
Still absolutely over the moon to be having my vaccination. I’ve even ironed something - largely given up ironing entirely.

@Kaylasmum49

This just came up on my phone. I had the AZ vaccine 10 days ago. I'm concerned about the news of blood clotting issues.

What does "came up on my phone" mean? Where is this being reported?

Yesterday the news from Ireland was....

No change to advice on AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine from NIAC

www.rte.ie/news/2021/0312/1203549-coronavirus-ireland-vaccine/

Given that Covid can also cause serious blood clots and given the numbers, I think you are more likely to get Covid than suffer any ill effects from the vaccines.

It was like a news flash

@HeronLanyon

I’m having mine in about an hour ! I did hear bbc podcast ‘more or less’ on this issue and was reassured hearing medical statisticians discussing the figures. Also the most recent episode was interesting on obesity/Covid headlines and what the underlying figures actually mean. Good luck everyone. Still absolutely over the moon to be having my vaccination. I’ve even ironed something - largely given up ironing entirely.

What was the podcast about the underlying figures?

 Ireland should suspend AstraZeneca vaccine over clotting concerns, health authority says news.sky.com/story/ireland-should-suspend-astrazeneca-vaccine-over-clotting-concerns-health-authority-says-12245626

You will be swamped soon with people telling you that you are scaremongering, but I agree this is worrying. The clots probably aren't linked but the UKs refusal to consider that there maybe an issue and the desire of many to shut down the conversation is scary. The acceptance that its caused 'by a dodgy batch ' is also terrifying.

This, combined with the severe outbreak of covid in the Sidmouth care home which hasn't been widely reported, makes me much less optimistic.

Radio 4 programme called ‘more or less’. Abkut statistics/medicine/policy etc. Really I retesting always. Also available as podcast. over the last months there have been a lot about Covid - digging behind below the headlines with experts unravelling what the figures really mean. On blood clot and link to obesity as so often the general consensus from experts has been that the headlines are too simplistic and because of that, unintentionally alarmist.

This might reassure you:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56357760

With so many millions of doses administered just in the UK, I think we would hear if there were a significant number of these events don't you?

[quote SilverGlitterBaubles] Ireland should suspend AstraZeneca vaccine over clotting concerns, health authority says news.sky.com/story/ireland-should-suspend-astrazeneca-vaccine-over-clotting-concerns-health-authority-says-12245626[/quote]
www.breakingnews.ie/amp/ireland/ireland-temporarily-halts-use-of-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-1095930.html

Ireland has suspended it. I see the 'don't you dare criticise the vaccine brigade' are here in force already.

Very small numbers. No evidence to say that incidence is higher than normal. Says WHO.

If you expect total safety and no risk, you are a fool.

I had the AZ vaccine.

It came up on my Upday news thing too
Seemingly not supposed to be a link to the vaccine

Were the 4 people severely overweight? Are you overweight? Were they smokers? are you a smoker?

I think the risk and need for concern depends massively on the answers to those questions. Obesity is the biggest risk factor for stroke, as well as lack of November which can go with that. Everything that I have read suggests that the cases are just the normal background level of stroke that we would expect in any population, or maybe that the immune response accelerated underlying clots about to happen due to inflammation.

If you are an obese smoker that doesn't move around much, I'd be worried about blood clots generally anyway, as would your GP. Perhaps those people aren't in the right place to have any vaccine - but of course are also the ones that covid will rip through.

If you're not massively overweight, don't smoke and are fairly active, I see no cause for alarm.

I've just had the AZ vaccine too. It's very simple, at an individual level. I wasn't given a choice of vaccine (like most people). My DC is back at school. The risk of getting COVID and having a bad time or dying is clearly far, far higher than my risk of being one of the very tiny minority who may be adversely affected by the vaccine.

movement not November

murbblurb no I'm not a fool!! I didn't expect to be worrying about blood clotting issues.

amp.independent.ie/world-news/coronavirus/astrazeneca-vaccine-temporarily-suspended-as-precautionary-measure-over-reports-of-blood-clots-40194558.html?utm_source=upday&utm_medium=referral

This is the link from Upday

Anyone know if Ireland is one of the 17 countries who received a certain batch that is bring looked in to?
I tried googling, but cant find the answer.

I will have any UK vaccine without question when my turn comes but the fact that so many national governments are pausing to reflect counts for something. Particularly so in that the pandemic is still raging in those countries and one would have thought any tools that help with that would be welcome with open arms.

Listen to more or less (should be a legal requirement for all) they cut through all the statistics and are all around brilliant. Radio 4, available as a podcast including past editions. The obesity one this week was another case of statistics trumping the media

I've looked up the MHRA yellow cards reporting. It's available to everyone here: www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-adverse-reactions/coronavirus-vaccine-summary-of-yellow-card-reporting.

About 100 cases linked to stroke or embolism from each of Pfizer BioNTec and Oxford Astrazeneca if you tot up across all categories, a few more reported for Pfizer than for Oxford.
Call it 230 from 23 million doses. That's 1 per 100,000. You'd normally expect 1 in 10,000 per year, so in 3 months of vaccination that's 1 in 30,000.
It's actually lower risk for vaccinated people than unvaccinated. Good news!

The link I gave above says this:

In relation to the specific batch suspended in Austria, this was supplied to 17 countries in the EU including Ireland. The HPRA is aware that this batch was last distributed for use nationally during the second half of February. No further supplies from this batch are expected

OP, I found reading these reports reassuring. I haven't checked but I would imagine most of the numbers here are in line with what would normally be expected to occur in the general population - i.e. not caused by the vaccines.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-adverse-reactions