Australia does not recommend AZ vaccine to under 50s

[Alondra]

and will give Pfizer to this age group. People who have had a first dose without problems can have the second dose safely.

This is going to throw the vaccination program in Australia into disarray as AZ was the only vaccine to to be produced in Australia. On the other hand many here are breathing a bit easier tonight.

I wish this decision was made here but it wasn’t and on a personal level, like someone who’s getting the jab due to nature of work, but healthy 30 something with antibodies to Covid... I feel being thrown under a bus for the sake of protecting others. But they don’t leave much choice here.

Yes, but Australia is in a very different position to the UK. I don't know that I'd bother having any vaccine at all if I lived in Australia. Unless it was required to do stuff, I suppose.

It's about balancing risk, isn't it. Australians have got almost zero chance of even catching Covid, let alone getting seriously ill with it. So why would they recommend even the small risk of the AZ vaccine? In the UK, the risk of Covid is much higher than the risk of the vaccine for almost everyone.

How many other vaccines will Australia have access to and when will they arrive?
I think Australia being Covid free has different risk factors to weigh up than the U.K.. The balance of risks to having any vaccine at all changes I guess?
But then what if you want to travel overseas, having any vaccine is then better than none.
I was thinking about Australia and New Zealand and what they are thinking about the endemic nature if Covid now, it is here to stay and will not be eradicated globally.
Here in U.K. we are talking about annual vaccines and already preparing for boosters in the Autumn here (jab number 3!)
Unfortunately it’ll not be one round of vaccines and then done

Try telling that to the amount of posters who jumped on me when I questioned the safety of the AZ vaccine in previous posts. Or the nationalist crap you keep seeing against the EU for daring to question that the company had not provided enough information about the safety of the vaccine for the over 60s a few months ago, and for the deaths caused by blood clotting issues reported in most European countries but not in the UK until not long ago.

Aside from this, I want to visit my family in Europe and it won't be possible without a vaccination passport. I don't want to be in the position of being stuck in Australia as my family refuses to get the AZ vaccine. I'm just glad the government have listened to the recommendation of the CMO.

The risk-benefit calculation depends on the level of Covid in the population at large. Australia has such minuscule Covid numbers that almost no measurable vaccine risk is worthwhile.

The UK has low numbers but still much higher than Australia, so the benefits of the vaccine for the under 30s don’t outweigh the very low risks here, but the Covid risks for 30-50s are higher than the vaccine risks, even just over the couple of months that their vaccination might be delayed if they waited for Moderna/Pfizer.

sashagabadon

As we speak there are more vaccines being developed, what experts call "the second generation" that will be safer and more protective. It takes time to develop though. Countries want to open up, all of us want to go back to normal, it's understandable we want the vaccination programs to succeed ...but not at any price.

I don't know what other vaccination program will be available in Australia. Getting the Pfizer is going to be difficult, we are a little country and there is so many dosis that can be produced world wide. It's going to interesting to see that the Australian government can do.

I live in Australia and am pro vaccine but they’ve probably made the right decision. If AZ was the only vaccine available it would be a different story. It’s a shame that it’s happened with the vaccine we can produce here and have pinned all our hopes on.

Well done to Australia. Once again showing up the UK in their Covid response.

Australia can afford to run a slow vaccine program - the virus there is largely under control - ergo the risk/reward ratio for the AZ vaccine leans slightly more towards risk.

However, they're likely to find that it doesn't matter WHICH vaccine they use - as it's looking increasingy likely that it's the spike protein itself which is the problem which is why covid causes clotting and ALL the vaccines produce this in the body, albeit in much smaller amounts than the virus itself.

So those who do get clots, would almost certainly have been on the critical list or dead if they'd contracted the virus itself.

Yes I agree that “just get a different vaccine” may well not be a magic wand, and that the assumption that new vaccines will automatically be safer is somewhat unevidenced. Any brand new vaccine will be back where we first started, with only a few tens of thousands of test subjects, not nearly enough to pick up very rare reactions like this one. Moderna and Pfizer have been given in very large numbers which is reassuring, but there are definite signs that they’re producing some strange rare clotting events.

It would be difficult to test a brand new vaccine now, particularly in the U.K. where everyone here will get offered a real vaccine within the next few months. Why would anyone volunteer for a trial now when there’s a50% chance you could get a placebo jab or a new vaccine that may not even work. That ship has sailed in the U.K. now.
I guess if Australia could invent a new vaccine, it could then be tested on Australian’s ( where most of the population has not had a vaccine already).
If not, Australia has to rely on the vaccines created, tested and trialed and in most cases produced in the rest of the world. What else can they do?

I don't think you can know that second-generation vaccines will be safer and more protective. They don't even know whether the clotting issues are related to any of the vaccines, let alone how to design them to prevent them. Newer vaccines may work better in that they will be designed to work against the variants. But I'm not convinced that the safety of anything being developed now will take this or anything else into account - there are always very rare reactions to things.

I don't know that I'd bother having any vaccine at all if I lived in Australia. Unless it was required to do stuff, I suppose. It's about balancing risk, isn't it. Australians have got almost zero chance of even catching Covid, let alone getting seriously ill with it.

Australia has staked its reputation on zero-COVID and has next to no immunity within its borders, meaning that they cannot open their borders and allow unquarantined travel until almost everyone is vaccinated. I know several Ozzies who are stranded because they cannot pay 10,000 dollars and keep their children confined in a tiny hotel room for two weeks in order to go back to their own country. Oz needs to get on with the vaccination program. However, that is going to be hard without AZ as Oz is having difficulties with getting enough Pfizer doses, and has no Moderna contract at all.

There’s no point being envious of Australia’s position unless you also want to close the borders and strive for zero covid.

Out of the two situations, zero Covid but no population immunity and low vaccine supply OR endemic low level Covid but high population immunity and high vaccine supply, I prefer the latter.
With the availability of vaccines, I now think the pendulum has now swung away from a zero Covid strategy all things considered.
Future vaccine resistant Mutant strains may swing the pendulum back to favour zero Covid again but in that senario we’re all back to square one again

There’s no point being envious of Australia’s position unless you also want to close the borders and strive for zero covid.

Frankly I absolutely do and have been so envious of Aus and New Zealand this past year.

Australia has ordered Moderna and Novavax. You'll hear about Novavax in 2 weeks

The U.K. of course could go for no Covid (which means aiming for lowest Covid) whilst sourcing new vaccines.

We are not. We are easing as planned and pushing AstraZeneca to 30-50 year olds or even 60 year olds unlike other countries.

Because of the economy.

That’s it.

The economy and a stubborn refusal to budge from our order of az. which had diminished.

@Duckyface

The U.K. of course could go for no Covid (which means aiming for lowest Covid) whilst sourcing new vaccines.

We are not. We are easing as planned and pushing AstraZeneca to 30-50 year olds or even 60 year olds unlike other countries.

Because of the economy.

That’s it.

The economy and a stubborn refusal to budge from our order of az. which had diminished.

So how would that work? Do you think we should stay locked down with all its consequences while we source these new vaccines? How else would you prevent more and more people dying of covid in the meantime? What about all the jobs that will be lost?

Personally I'd rather take the tiny risk of having the AZ vaccine than live like this for much longer.