Majority under 50's not vaccinated yet. Surely blood clots will increase

[Chill08]

Can someone please explain something to me. I may be being a little dumb over this whole blood clot thing. But under 30's can be offered a different vaccine as clot risk higher. But the majority of pp aged 49-30 havent been vaccinated yet. As its been mostly over 50's having the vaccine and the risk of blood clots is a lot lower. I feel like the 49-30 year olds are now the experiment. How come alot of other countries have set the age at over 55/60 but we think its ok down to 30. Even though we dont have much data on this age group yet? Am i missing something?

It’s a risk benefit balance. Other countries may not be relying heavily on the az so the risk benefit balance on who to offer it to may be different.

I think Australia is a bit of an outlier here because the chance of anyone catching Covid there is very remote so the risk of not being vaccinated as an under 50 atm is probably lower than the very very low risk of blood clots.

Yep, that makes sense. As vaccinations proceed with those aged 49 to 30, in that order, we can statistically expect clotting events to manifest more (in terms of absolute numbers, though not necessarily in terms of occurrences per million doses).

It seems to be because we just don’t have enough of the other vaccines to use them on everyone under 60 or 55 of whatever. Which makes sense from a public health perspective, but doesn’t feel great from an individual perspective.

I’m late 40s and was expecting (hoping) to be given Moderna, but no doubt they’ll all be reserved for under 30s. They’ll be using up the unwanted AZ on us.

Actually a huge amount under fifty have had it, all the carers, nhs staff, front line health workers and the cev. I don’t know the exact numbers but it looks like a third of the population over eighteen, it’s literally millions.

It is about looking at the potential risk of catching covid and what the likelihood any particular age group have of getting seriously ill or dying.

There is no increased risk of a blood clot when you are under a certain age. They detailed this quite clearly in yesterday's briefing.

These three graphs on the following link explain it really well. wintoncentre.maths.cam.ac.uk/news/communicating-potential-benefits-and-harms-astra-zeneca-covid-19-vaccine/
As you can see it is not until you get to the point that we were at during the peak of the second wave that the risk benefit ratio for the under 30's widens enough for there to be a considerable advantage in the Astrazeneca.
For all other age groups the risk benefit ratio is much more clearly defined at all levels of exposure risk.

Yes I think we will see that and justified on the basis of “herd immunity” and “risk”.

It’s strange we are so risk averse with covid but happy to sacrifice 100 younger people now to a vaccine they probably don’t need

There could also be increased vigilance in reporting these types of events now.

@Chill08

Can someone please explain something to me. I may be being a little dumb over this whole blood clot thing. But under 30's can be offered a different vaccine as clot risk higher. But the majority of pp aged 49-30 havent been vaccinated yet. As its been mostly over 50's having the vaccine and the risk of blood clots is a lot lower. I feel like the 49-30 year olds are now the experiment. How come alot of other countries have set the age at over 55/60 but we think its ok down to 30. Even though we dont have much data on this age group yet? Am i missing something?

There is currently no data that says there is definitely a link at all! And not enough data (because there are very, very few cases) to say that there is any increased risk - if there is a risk at all - for younger people. And there are similar concerns about possible rare side effects with both Pfizer and Moderna too! In all cases, the language is couched in terms of it being possible that there is a link because the incidences appear to have occurred after vaccination and that such conditions are statistically very rare in the general population anyway. Although it may be that there is a link, the truth is that there may not be - it could be coincidence. Probably not, but honestly, with a handful of cases out of millions, there simply isn't enough information to say anything with certainty.

There is no such thing as a risk free medication - that includes "natural" ones! There is no such thing as a risk free life. You take risks all the time and don't even think about them, and millions of those common everyday risks you take are bigger risks than having the Covid vaccines.

I am not the person to talk to if you want to be told that Covid is a big scary disease. It is serious, but it has also been hyped in terms of the risk it poses to most people. The chances of you getting it seriously, or dying from its impact, is very low. Even in older age groups than you. The chances of the vaccine - any vaccine - causing you harm are substantially lower than the Covid risk.

@rainbowunicorn

It is about looking at the potential risk of catching covid and what the likelihood any particular age group have of getting seriously ill or dying.

There is no increased risk of a blood clot when you are under a certain age. They detailed this quite clearly in yesterday's briefing.

These three graphs on the following link explain it really well. wintoncentre.maths.cam.ac.uk/news/communicating-potential-benefits-and-harms-astra-zeneca-covid-19-vaccine/
As you can see it is not until you get to the point that we were at during the peak of the second wave that the risk benefit ratio for the under 30's widens enough for there to be a considerable advantage in the Astrazeneca.
For all other age groups the risk benefit ratio is much more clearly defined at all levels of exposure risk.

Thanks for the charts. They do seem to show a higher risk of a blood clot though for the younger age groups. Under 30s have a 1.1 in 100,000 risk compared to 0.2 in 100,000 for the 60 to 69 age group.

It’s strange we are so risk averse with covid but happy to sacrifice 100 younger people now to a vaccine they probably don’t need

At population level it's always the case with vaccines. The benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks. But at individual level, possibly not so much.

But the European Court of Human Rights has just ruled that compulsory vaccination is acceptable (in relation to childhood vaccines in the Czech Republic not the covid vaccine) so individual risk does not matter. We will probably see more vaccine compulsion now.

Thankyou for your comments. Im in my forties and was super excited to get it done as soon as its my turn. Im still going to get it done i understand the low risk etc. Even though there is no proven link yet, what is rattling me more than anything is other countries setting their limit at 50, 55 etc

Here is the link on the ECHR decision (which applies to the UK - this isn't the EU court): www.dw.com/en/echr-rules-obligatory-vaccination-may-be-necessary/a-57128443

“Even though there is no proven link yet, what is rattling me more than anything is other countries setting their limit at 50, 55 etc”

This. I’m very pro-science and pro-vaccination, but the differences between the European approach and ours is unsettling. Pretty sure it’s about vaccine availability on our side, and not so much about personal risk.

@Woodpecker22 sorry yes, I worded that badly. I should have said that there is not a large risk at any age of a blood clot specific to the vaccine. Even at the highest risk of 1.1 per 100,000 the percentages are tiny.

@Chill08

Thankyou for your comments. Im in my forties and was super excited to get it done as soon as its my turn. Im still going to get it done i understand the low risk etc. Even though there is no proven link yet, what is rattling me more than anything is other countries setting their limit at 50, 55 etc

I could be cynical about that and point out that most of them don't have the vaccine to do anything else! So it's a good way of persuading your population not to demand the vaccine, by setting limits on it "for other reasons". For example, and this is a real scenario - Canada made a big song and dance about the fact that they were going to suspend using AZ until things were clearer. Not sure what they were suspending because my over 70 year old friends who live in a very populous part of Canada haven't been offered the vaccine yet anyway. Any vaccine! It's a fact that Canada has very little vaccine due to supply issues. Much easier to say that you can't have the vaccine because there might be a health risk than you can't have the vaccine because we don't have enough of it. The first is someone else's fault. The second is yours!

I suspect you are right to wonder.

I also wonder at their statistics of 79(?) cases per so many million. But most of those million have been much older.

So what are the statistics of 79(?) per the actual vaccinated number of the affected age group? (And as you say OP a lot of those haven’t even been vaccinated yet.)

I am afraid I think they have concluded that yes, more people will probably die of blood clots, but that it's worth it for the greater good and overall the vaccine will save a lot more lives than it will take. Not what you or I wanted to hear but that's where we're at.

The truth is, because we're living through a pandemic, the overall risk to our health and lives is already much higher than it was say two years ago. So you have a choice between two risks now and we're being told having the vaccine is the smaller of the two.

Personally I would very much prefer to be offered Pfizer or Moderna, but the chances of that happening now look even slimmer than before. It's a shame the UK is so dependent on the AZ vaccine. On the other hand, Bavaria is, I believe, buying the Sputnik vaccine. So perhaps we should consider ourselves lucky.

all Moondust001 makes sense.

I can see that the risk is tiny and on balance worth it, but I also feel unsettled at the prospect of getting the AZ vaccine, which I had been looking forward to. I'm 46.

Then again, when I read about how things are going in France, Germany - or worse still, Brazil - I can see that really we have no choice but to crack on and take whatever vaccine we're lucky enough to be offered.

ScrollingLeaves, I did a bit of dodgy maths this morning. There are (very roughly) 16 million people in the 30-50 age bracket. Assuming a quarter of them have already had a jab, and half of those were AZ, then we're looking at 2 million 30-50 year olds who have had the AZ vaccine.

According to the government website, 11 out of the 19 people who died were under the age of 50, 3 of whom were under 30. So, eight people in the 30-50 age bracket have died so far. That's four in a million, or 0.4 in 100,000. The graph they showed at the press conference actually showed slightly higher risks for 'serious harm' but in the same sort of number range.

Now I am sure someone will come along and tell me this is all wrong!

Thank you Schulte.
Well done.

I hadn’t realised the graphs had taken the relevant group only into account (I presumed they had just looked at the deaths in regard to the entire vaccinated group.) So the odds do look better than I thought they might be.

Perhaps ‘More or Less’ will look into this too - not that I don’t trust your calculations.

Serious harm may not just be death.
As it's a stroke some will not fully recover.
There was another post saying we must try to identify it quickly.
But i just dont feel nhs is set up for that (similar to vax it's more about whole population).
Gps miss so much.
It really needs a dedicated phone oine where you can get help rather than say a random on 111.
Doesnt help the vax causes headaches.
Surely lives could ve saved if those with a headache longer than xh/d were taken in and had the tests.
Also looking at a doc the timeframe was 4-30d! Which is longer than the 20 i had seen before