Matt Hancock - "The Risk of a clot from AZ same as long haul flight"

[SheenMcQueen]

I keep reading this today. This was supposed to be reassuring statement, but by that reckoning, the risk has of a clot from AZ has gone from 1 in a million (roughly) to 1 in a thousand (which is the risk of getting DVT after a long flight). The figures don't bear that out, so I can't understand why he has made a comparison which, for me, makes the risk seem far higher than (I think) it is?

FWIW I have had my first dose of AZ and am fully intending to have my second. I am female 50 - so in the range of people who have suffered from clots, but was confident that the risk was so vanishingly small that it was not worth worrying about it. This statement has thrown me a bit.

Can someone clear it up for me?

Yes, he is an idiot.

I'm not happy about the situation (had one AZ jab, mid 30s) but that statement is garbage based on what we currently know. Unless Matt Hancock knows that the AZ is far far more dangerous than anyone has said, but I doubt it!

He should have said, 'You're far more likely to get a blood clot on a long haul flight than from this vaccine'.

But really he shouldn't have even compared them as they are different types of blood clots with different mortality rates and different situations altogether.

I don't understand how it's literally a news 'headline' as it's so inaccurate (based on what we have been told thus far) and utterly scaremongering if you take one second to google instances of DVT after a long-haul flight.

I get that they are completely different types of clots but I assume he was trying to reassure people by suggesting that we all get on flights blah blah blah. He would have done far better to say that you are a hundred/thousand times more likely to get a clot from a long haul flight - not say that they are the same.

Is he really that stupid? Or is the risk far higher than initial suggestions? I am so pro-vaccine, so rationale and so ok with having had AZ, but this statement is doing my head in.

Sorry to bump my own thread, but can someone just reassure me that MH is an arse, and that the danger hasn't suddenly multiplied?? It's annoying me that I am getting sucked in to this but I can't stop wondering why he basically said "it's a 1/1000 chance".

Well, yeah, but Matt you aren't letting us take any long haul flights. Might as well compare the risk to space travel.

MH is an arse.

You’re welcome

Yes, he really is that stupid.

It's an arse/ elbow situation, that's all.

Where on earth have you got the stat that a long haul flight risk in 1 in 1000? That would mean that out of two a380 full aircraft on a long flight one passenger would get dvt. The number of people that have ever got dvt on a flight is extremely small.

Mh is an idiot though.

A better stat I found is that 240 people in uk get blood clot EVERY DAY. And in three months an extra 30 or so people (total, not per day) have got a blood clot.

Or did mh actually say that the chance of getting dvt on a long haul flight is one in a thousand. Which makes him even more of an idiot if he said that

Oh good grief. Quite aside from the probability issue, it’s not even the same kind of clot. The DVT long flight kind are far easier to treat. His bellendery really knows no bounds.

I believe it is as many as 2 per cent on a long haul flight but vast majority of clots dissolve and do not become threatening in these instances. Besides we k ow WHO is more at risk from DVT on long haul flights - over 50’s, high BMI, varicose veins, HRT, smokers , The Pill etc etc, whereas the trouble is wi5 these brain clots and AZ we don’t know these details yet. Plus whereas we know how to mitigate against risk of DVT when flying (leg exercises, get up walk about, drink plenty fluids, compression socks, etc ) , we have no such advice when going for an AZ jab. That’s the problem we don’t feel we can access our own individual risk enough or take steps to reduce that risk. Stand people will always worry more when they feel they have NO control at all over such things.

So people will always worry more.....not stand !

Very Low risk of clots with AZ even so.

I know 2 people who had clots from long haul flights, so I hope it's not the same, both are well now and were put on blood thinners and I don't think either were hospitalised apart from going for tests

Risk of DVT: 1/1000

cks.nice.org.uk/topics/dvt-prevention-for-travellers/

Or, according to WHO: 1/6000

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1906644/

Matt Hancock telling us the risk from AZ is the same asa long haul flight:

www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/coronavirus-live-latest-updates-covid-astrazeneca-vaccine-b928418.html

Matt Hancock is out of his depth. Even though the risks are very low.