Alternatives to AstraZeneca vaccine for under 40s “could be considered” amid rise in blood clots

[Whichjab]

www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/astrazeneca-vaccine-side-effects-blood-clots-under-40-b931498.html

This is concerning, especially as there is limited research into combining vaccinations. I feel that the trust in vaccination is being eroded. I have always been pro vacc but feeling much less so atm.
I'm not sure I will get my second jab now.

@walkaround i'm not referring to any charts. I'm referring to the modelling at the end of the report on p19

@Carefulvulvadriver - thanks, it’s good to see the actual death statistic reported for comparison.

I’m not sure offering an alternative vaccine to under 50s now is fair if the result is running out of vaccines other than AZ for the next age group down.

@Walkaround
"except that’s wrong as a calculation, as getting a rare type of blood clot and dying from it are two different things - same as getting covid and dying from it are two different things."

My figures are correct and all relate to death - I am not confusing getting VITT post-Astrazeneca and dying from VITT post-Astrazeneca, as you suggest. The case rate of in Norway was 1 in 20 000 and the DEATH rate was 1 in 40 000, as I said.

Excellent link @Carefulvulvadriver I'm reading it exactly the same way. Also waiting now on the next yellow card report.

@Walkaround
"As for healthy versus less healthy people - why the assumption it’s only healthy people getting blood clots after vaccination, and only people secretly harbouring health weaknesses that are dying from covid? This is like talking to people suffering from an anxiety disorder."

That's not the point. The point is that the people about to be vaccinated (and therefore weighing up their risk) are the healthy cohort. The high risk cohort have already been vaccinated.

@Fieldofmemes - why specify Norway’s figures? Was it because they were the worst you could find. Getting a reasonably accurate idea of risk for an extremely rare side effect from a vaccine is going to come from data from millions of vaccinations given, not from picking on Norway’s data following a comparatively small number of vaccinations - after all, if you give one vaccination and that person dies, that’s a 100% death rate.

@Walkaround which is precisely why I said "worst case scenario". Read my post again.

But given that the risk of VITT in the UK mysteriously "doubled in a week" (as reported in various newspapers a few days ago) I would say we won't actually know the real risk for a while yet...

@Fieldofmemes - we don’t know all the real risk factors of covid, yet, either. Or the real risks of any diseases, as they all depend in age, genetics, health, etc, etc. Just how much risk detail are you planning on hanging around for? Millions of doses have been given. The doubling of a minuscule risk remains a minuscule risk. Just how long do you think you will be happy to wait until you decide whether an AZ vaccine is worth the risk?

The issue for me is that the MHRA did recommend AZ isn't given to the under 30s, and they did that based on a very specific calculation. There really wasn't much difference in it to for the 30-39 group though and the reports of the clots have since doubled. So are they just going to shrug and say too bad, the 30s age group is just going to have to take the increased risk, we are not going to update the calculations we used before.

Especially as other countries who have put an age restriction on AZ have put it so much higher.

Why can't they give the 30s age group an alternative vaccine and make the younger age group wait longer until Novavax is available?

Plus we are being told there is no way to choose which vaccine you get, but again due to the postcode lottery some people have had a choice as some locations offering Moderna were announced in the news...

@nordica - I see it this way. Other countries have said one thing, then changed their minds (eg realised, like Canada, that waiting for alternatives will kill more people than getting on with it, or like France that saying only young people should be offered it was wrong and that older people were better off with it). That doesn’t make their reaction to the risks more intelligent, just a bit flakier. Other countries have a far lower death toll from covid behind them and may well be more confident at retaining a lid on infections for long enough to get in enough alternatives that waiting doesn’t end up killing more people than getting on with it. Other countries can’t get on with it anyway, because they don’t have enough of any vaccines, so might as well wait a while and hope not too many people die, or that cases don’t increase too rapidly in the meantime. I don’t trust our Government, but I don’t believe our medical regulator is plotting cynically to kill us, or thinking 40 somethings are worth less than the rest of humanity, or 30 somethings are expendable. I think it is making a calculation based on our specific country’s situation and coming up with a recommendation based on that.

The risk is extremely low. When there is the genuine luxury of choice, the vast majority of people would request the vaccine with the strongest safety record. When your medicines regulator suggests you don’t withdraw the offering of the AZ vaccine, then you know that the risk to society of not getting vaccinated quickly is very high, or we’d all be waiting around for an alternative (after all, current data indicates the AZ vaccine blood clot risk may be greatest to 40-somethings, not 30 and 20 somethings). Our government is planning on opening up to more countries and letting more mixing happen in the very near future. Boris Johnson hates lockdowns and can and does delay them. He doesn’t regulate medicines, though. I think an awful lot more people are going to die if we don’t keep getting vaccinated than if we do, and I want access to healthcare for a variety of reasons, I don’t want our hospitals clogged up with covid cases again - that’s a danger to young people too (as is getting locked down again very late, after lots of extra deaths).

I agree @nordica, I'm in my 40s and I just can't see that there is enough difference between the UK and say the Netherlands where the cut off is age 60. Someone will have to wait for a vaccine and if they make me wait until all the under 30s are done then so be it.

And everyone is seeing this issue as 'just get your 2 jabs of AZ then you're done'. But maybe once you've started on one vaccine you'll have to stick with it for years for all the boosters so it won't be just 2 and will you be able to opt out or change later?

And if, as data updates, the advice changes based on the updated situation (which includes the fact more people are now protected already and more vaccines are may be arriving), then I am sure our regulator will update its advice, having carefully considered the data. You can wait for others to be your guinea pigs for you, but that is what you are doing, just hoping other people of your age take the risks so that you can get enough data and be made safer by them whilst you don’t do anything.

You can wait for others to be your guinea pigs

And yet time again I see posters like you saying no-one is being forced to have a vaccine. It is not I making you a guinea pig, it's the government so perhaps you should address your anger at them. It is not anti vaccine, it's anti AZ until we have more info. I'm happy to be a guinea pig for one of the other vaccines.

@AppleJane

And everyone is seeing this issue as 'just get your 2 jabs of AZ then you're done'. But maybe once you've started on one vaccine you'll have to stick with it for years for all the boosters so it won't be just 2 and will you be able to opt out or change later?

They can't use AZ for boosters in people who had it for their original two jabs anyway as antibodies against the adenovirus vector will reduce the efficacy too much (this is why they used a chimp virus rather than a human virus).

[quote Anonawoman]A piece suggesting U.K. should raise age limit for AZ
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-04-28/britain-and-eu-may-both-be-wrong-on-astra-s-vaccine?utm_campaign=opinion&utm_medium=bd&utm_source=applenews[/quote]

From the article:

Given its low infection rates, the U.K. is taking too much risk with the Astra vaccine. It should raise the age cutoff to the over-55 population, where the relative risk of clots is 0.4 per 100,000 compared with a 10.5-per-100,000 risk of ICU admission. And it should do so even if that means a delay in some reopening measures.

@QueenStromba that's interesting I haven't heard that before. Do you have a link I could look at?

[quote AppleJane]@QueenStromba that's interesting I haven't heard that before. Do you have a link I could look at?[/quote]
This article is a bit old now but it explains the problem.

www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/comment/covid-19-vaccines-antibodies-booster/

Towards the end is this quote "But the drawback with adenovirus-vectored vaccines, in general, is that one can get a maximum of two doses over a lifetime; any more than that and the immune system could generate neutralising antibodies to attack the vector".

Blimey, thanks @QueenStromba I'll have a good read of that later

My problem with AZ is that the blood clot link only came to light because other countries started vaccinating a younger cohort. I can't help but wonder if older people have also had blood clots following AZ vaccination but these links have been missed simply because blood clots are far more likely in the older population so no alert was triggered. In order to alleviate my fears I would hope there is a full case review taking place of every person, regardless of age, who has experienced a clot over the last 6 months to discount or acknowledge a potential link to AZ but suspect this is not happening (because too much has been invested in AZ and no one wants to let the genie out the bottle and say - ah OK - there's better vaccines out there and we should use those ones instead)

@NotSoLongGoodbye you make a good point. The yellow card data shows there are a further 627 deaths recorded after receiving AZ. I can't remember the exact wording in the report but it essentially says they are not counting them officially because they were elderly/ill. I too would like to know their symptoms prior to death and what exactly they are considered as elderly or ill.

@AppleJane
The reason I've been mulling this over is because I read a news article about one of the women (early 50s) who died from a clot following AZ and the death certificate said natural causes which the family are now contesting. And sadly a distant family member died 3 weeks ago suddenly because of blood clots in her lungs - and we are not aware of any questions being asked if she had recently had her second AZ vaccine ...

I'm sorry to hear that @NotSoLongGoodbye. I expect there will be lots of families with the same question. I feel there is enough data already to justify a pause to consider with regards to AZ. My greatest fear is that the daily deaths from side effects could overtake the Covid deaths and would shake public confidence in all vaccines.