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.

@Schulte, yes, I agree with you.
Even if the numbers are low, if the person that dies is you or someone close to you, it would be utterly devastating, and we all want deaths to be down to 0.

However, I’m just trying to find a little ‘reassurance’ where I can... and the fact that early detection can lead to survival gives me a little comfort.

@User657849 I doubt anyone who has posted about the gamble of taking this one vaccine will read that and have any change in their perspective.

Data about similar issues with other vaccines; different issues; different databases and different outcomes; different societal experiences and expectations; changing data as time goes on; treatments beng available; signs and symptoms being far better undertsood etc etc etc, all will be either ignored or weighed and found wanting, no matter what scientists with hundreds of years experience between them might say!

Sadly that is human nature. Which is why journalists who write the artricles that puff all of this up without undertsanding the full issues themselves need to be shot.. OK, maybe not shot... maybe!

What it will come down to for every individual still to have a vaccine is their individual choice based on a necessarily flawed understanding of the risks involved. Sadly the trial by SM has undermined trust in medical professionals at the same time as offering so much information that people feel able to make a choice. A choice that lacks depth and breadth of understanding becasie none of us (or very, very few of us) have enough spscific education to be be able to undertsand what a Relative Risk is, let alone contruct one for ourselves.

And those bloody risk calculators you can find? The authors of those also need to be shot... definitely shot!

@HolmeH

Bore off & refuse your jab. These threads are exhausting. I’ve taken the contraceptive pill for 20 years which also carries a risk of clots & death at a far higher rate. Me & millions of others. I’ll continue to take my pill & I’ll get my jab. Life is a risk, I also enjoy sky diving, deffo risk of death 😅

Yep, agree totally.

I understand relative risk very well. And I also know how easy it is to massage numbers so they support whatever argument you want to get across.

I have a good grasp too. And yes, my personal list of confounding factors would easily be swayed to give any answer.

Even though I know what an RR is and how it changes, what it represents and what it does not represent, I couldn't make a meaningful list of factors to be included, excluded, and so couldn't even begin to work out my own personal risk from covid or jab!

I’ll take the AZ as it’s the only one proven against Severe and Long Covid - that’s my concern. Avoiding Covid complications. But it looks like the NHS is trying to source cheaper post-pandemic alternatives so in the future I may need to pay extra for it.

@GrumpyHoonMain

I’ll take the AZ as it’s the only one proven against Severe and Long Covid - that’s my concern. Avoiding Covid complications. But it looks like the NHS is trying to source cheaper post-pandemic alternatives so in the future I may need to pay extra for it.

Is that true @GrumpyHoonMain? I hadn't heard that before, but I'm pleased to hear it as I've had my first shot of AZ and am awaiting the second. I share your concern about long covid!

I think the days from Israel might disagree about that. Infections, admissions and deaths are all down, and it’s difficult to see wh’s going to be getting long Covid from their data.

Sadly that is human nature. Which is why journalists who write the artricles that puff all of this up without undertsanding the full issues themselves need to be shot.. OK, maybe not shot... maybe!

What’s annoying about this is the series of slides presented showing risks at low, medium and high transmission for different age groups was really clear.

I agree with @fieldofmemes excellent points especially on the ethics of coercing people to accept the AZ vaccine.

@HolmeH ‘s comment that the contraception pill has a “far higher risk of blood clots and death” is factually incorrect. Many media outlets are reporting that the risk of blood clots with the contraceptive pill is higher than the risk of blood clots with the AZ vaccine. But this is an inappropriate comparison because the blood clots caused by the contraceptive pill are usually a very different type of blood clot and the fatality rate of contraception linked blood clots is actually much much lower, not higher. Such inappropriate comparisons and misinformation and are unhelpful in addressing vaccine hesitancy. See
www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/21/comparing-astrazeneca-vaccine-blood-clot-risk-to-odds-of-dying-in-a-car-crash-unhelpful-experts-say

It was, wasn't it @RafaIsTheKingOfClay?

At a glance and nice and simple. Yet some seem to prefer making the issue more complicated, adding factors that nobody can actually understand without the education of the people who made the bloody graph!

The risk of death from covid is very low for young people, so the risk of blood clots after vaccination feels higher as you drop through the age groups.

But there are other risks from covid - and long covid is a big risk to the young.

Whether taking a vaccine now is a greater or lesser risk than complications from covid depends on rates of covid in your country now. The AZ vaccine in India atm would be a considerably lower risk to people under the age of 30 or 40 than the risk of getting covid with an overwhelmed healthcare system and an inability to do a full-on nationwide lockdown. And the fact is, countries which currently have low covid rates will have rates that go up again in the near future unless the vast majority of their population is successfully vaccinated with an effective vaccine.

Imvho, I would rather take the risk of vaccination now than the risk of covid rising rapidly in a country with low vaccination rates, because of the speed with which the risk of vaccination being higher than the risk of covid can change remarkably quickly, and I don’t want to remain locked down forever - something with which I suspect most 20 and 30 somethings would agree with. As we do not actually largely have the luxury of being able to pick and choose vaccine types, either on an individual or national level, because we are competing with the rest of the world for supplies, I think people adamantly opposed to the AZ vaccine are being precious about it and not actually thinking through all the implications.

I don’t know what to think. I am shaken that the trials didn’t pick this up, and that the MHRA was so slow to pick it up. They only found the extra cases after the Germans pointed it out. The AZ trials I read yesterday used a meningitis vaccine as a control - I need to find out if that is true - but that’s also hugely pissed me off as surely a proper RCT would have used a saline only control? I’m told to trust scientists but it all sounds half baked to me.

And the nagging doubt with all these vaccines is what else has been missed? What is there longer term

I’m aware I sound neurotic but I have become this way due to years of medical mistakes and cock ups. I just don’t trust “experts”.

@GrumpyHoonMain

I’ll take the AZ as it’s the only one proven against Severe and Long Covid - that’s my concern. Avoiding Covid complications. But it looks like the NHS is trying to source cheaper post-pandemic alternatives so in the future I may need to pay extra for it.

I haven’t seen anything on long Covid, but AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Moderna all prevent severe Covid after two doses.

So AZ is not “the only one”

I am over 40 by a long way and would still refuse the AZ until we know more about the link with blood clots. I think it is ethically wrong not to give people a choice of vaccine now that new data has emerged and there are alternative, equally effective vaccines out there.

Many will accept the AZ without question - fine - but for those, like me, who have concerns I would prefer to be vaccinated with an alternative such as Pfizer/ Moderna. And yes, I would pay to receive the vaccine of my choice if it were available.

The cases I have read about do tend to be in women age 30-65. Until there is complete transparency and a review of every single case where there has been a blood clot within 31 days of the vaccine (in all age groups) I will remain somewhat skeptical of the data presented to date.

@GrumpyHoonMain

I’ll take the AZ as it’s the only one proven against Severe and Long Covid - that’s my concern. Avoiding Covid complications. But it looks like the NHS is trying to source cheaper post-pandemic alternatives so in the future I may need to pay extra for it.

I think you are mistaken. The only real data has come out of Israel and they used the Pfizer. The AZ is an 'at cost' vaccination it is impossible to purchase a cheaper alternative. However the Pfizer one is sold for profit.

@HolmeH

Bore off & refuse your jab. These threads are exhausting. I’ve taken the contraceptive pill for 20 years which also carries a risk of clots & death at a far higher rate. Me & millions of others. I’ll continue to take my pill & I’ll get my jab. Life is a risk, I also enjoy sky diving, deffo risk of death 😅

This is the coronavirus topic and this is new information, stop being a thread policeman, the title is very clear if you don't like it scroll on by.

Your examples are things you do for your benefit, vaccinating the younger age groups is overwhelmingly for the benefit of the older age groups.

It's still a very rare thing, and the risks in a country like the UK expected to have a third wave is still generally higher from Covid.
However, it's a pretty appalling message to the 40-50 age group. They've been poorly treated all along. As their risk from Covid is so much higher than under 40s, why weren't they included in phase one of the vaccination programme?

I'm ever so cynical at times and hope this is just one of them - but could the real motivation to give Modena and Pfizer to under 40s be because of the AZ might not be as effective against the Indian or SA strains? Does anyone know if this is the case? If it is the case, presumably lives become disposable as young as 40.

As we do not actually largely have the luxury of being able to pick and choose vaccine types, either on an individual or national level, because we are competing with the rest of the world for supplies

This is not true as other similar countries ARE allowing choice. The decision to not order vaccine supplies based on domestic demand is a U.K. government (autocratic) decision. Australia is sending its excess AZ doses to Papua New Guinea because domestic demand for it has dropped- as in fewer people accepting it and wanting a different, safer Covid vaccine. The EU has ordered extra doses from Pfizer and cancelled an order for 100 million AZ doses due to citizens in numerous EU nations refusing AZ by cancelling appointments or simply walking away. Of course, the U.K. government wants you to believe their hands are tied and it’s AZ or nothing, but you have to ask yourself, why? If the AZ vaccine were EU made, instead of “British made” I think they’d have chosen the democratic path instead of the autocratic one.

vaccinating the younger age groups is overwhelmingly for the benefit of the older age groups I completely disagree with this - there is major benefit to the young of living in a country with herd immunity and avoiding covid entirely.

Covid is not at all 'like flu' and you have a 15% chance of having some long covid issues even if asymptomatic.

Also you don;t know until you get covid whether you will have a bad case or a mild case. It is definitely to your benefit to avoid a bad case - a month of work adn unable to care for yur children is no small matter, even before we get anywhere near the hospitalisation stage.

You also protect your own loved ones by being much less likely to pass it to them. I include my children in this - children also have the same risk of long covid symptoms.

@PlanDeRaccordement - good luck getting huge quantities of the other vaccines in the very near future. You are conveniently ignoring the fact the UK had a massive problem with covid infections, so had to get started more quickly than other wealthy countries to get it under control, and countries like France, which have vacillated between only offering the AZ vaccine to young people, then only to old people, and which now have far higher rates of covid than we do, are not looking that purposeful and intelligent with their decision making at this precise point in time. The expression a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush is of some relevance. The EU had the issue of lack of birds in either place, so had to take a different approach...

But plan the issue is what supplies we currently have. It's all very well the UK government deciding to order additional alternatives to AZ but they wouldn't arrive for quite some time. Particularly as there's a worldwide raw material shortage (not helped by America's export ban).

The UK is not in the same fortunate position as somewhere like Australia. We have wide open borders to import any and all new strains. Most recently the SA and Indian ones. We haven't got the luxury of time to wait.

The European Medical Regulator has apparently been urging EU countries to continue using AZ. It's not an EU decision to stop using it in any age group.

Obviously the risk of covid is greater than the risks associated with the vaccine, but when there are alternative vaccines it is wiser to offer an alternative to younger people. Although I'd take the AZ if that's all I could get, I am glad that my country isn't offering it to under 65s. There's a risk of the anti-vax movement gaining more speed if people feel afraid of the vaccine they are being offered.

Personally I’d be diverting as many doses of any vaccine to India and Brazil right now, but in the absence of that:

Slowing down the vaccine program by not using 1 vaccine isn’t going to make the risk/benefit calculation better.

Slowing the roll out down will lead to more clots, not fewer.

@Tealightsandd
I’m also cynical and am wondering if the decision to carry on despite these deaths is linked to the fact that the average age of AZ deaths from blood clots is 47 and them being (so far) majority women dying might reflect general societal sexism- the disposable, worthlessness and invisibility of middle aged women past child bearing age.