Vaccine.. another sad story

[BountyIsUnderrated]

I've just read the below article, one little boy left without a mother and the poor father left alone to raise him.

There have been so many stories about this happening I don't know what to feel anymore.. I've been vaccinated myself but I can see why people are scared of the AZ.

It's rare yes but I don't think that would be very reassuring if someone I loved died... Is this the cost of protecting against covid?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9732583/Mother-three-47-dies-AstraZeneca-Covid-jab-caused-blood-clots-brain.html

Sky News now reporting it’s better to mix and match AZ with Pfizer so I’m assuming that means AZ isn’t that great as Pfizer mix adds Nine times more antibodies than just double AZ

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-mix-and-match-jabs-study-finds-combination-of-oxford-and-pfizer-vaccines-creates-robust-immune-response-12344108

Birth control and HRT are more dangerous than the vaccine.

Re doing better - we possibly could, and I am sure that research into alternative vaccines is continuing. It is possible that in time we will have better vaccines available - ones which are effective as AZ and Pfizer (or even more so) but with milder side effects and lower risk of serious harm.

When that day comes, there will rightly be great rejoicing.

Until then, we are still in the grip of a global pandemic, and these are the vaccines we have right now. They have cost some lives in what appear to be healthy people. Each and every one of those is a tragedy. But those same vaccines have saved thousand of lives already.

Nothing is risk-free. Public health interventions are done on the basis of statistics and it has to be that way.

It is sad, I feel for the family. It's incredibly unlucky statistically and I still plan on having my 2nd AZ and I have young kids. I do think as parents having life insurance is so important though.

So incredibly sad. My brother died a week after the moderna vaccine. His artery burst and he bled to death. Fucking awful and I can’t really make peace with it.
That said, he was immunosuppressed and the virus was a huge worry for him. He was on lifelong antibiotics. He survived the waves and variants of Covid but not the vaccine.
It breaks my heart beyond description really. It’s a dreadful misfortune. Who could have imagined the outcome for him would be so catastrophic? Weeks later, his wife and 3 kids are just trying to understand what the fuck has happened. My own grief is just getting worse to the point where I’m just like, fuck it. Fuck this world. What’s left? He’s a number to you, invisible, not even valuable enough to be a cautionary tale. I’ve been referred to as someone with an agenda, an antivaxxer, right here on MN, simply because I have a sad story to tell about the vaccine. He may be a number to you, but he’s my brother.

It’s important to hail the vaccine’s success. It’s also important to recognise the benefits of the yellow card reports. How else do we learn to improve the vaccine and monitor when it is and isn’t safe to give? Remember, this vaccine was rolled out under emergency measures, bypassing years of rigorous testing and development. That’s not to say the vaccination program isn’t effective or successful. But there will be more risks courtesy of the rush to roll out and slow the pandemic sooner rather than later. It won’t always be the right thing to give someone a Covid vaccination. People must accept this. Giving the vaccine to someone like my brother, whose immune system was pretty much nonexistent, was a bad decision. You’re welcome. He’s now a statistic to learn from. We learn from our mistakes. And THIS is why I’m against vaccine passports. Because some people won’t tolerate the vaccine. They, ironically, may survive Covid but not the vaccine. And in time, doctors will understand why this is and how to manage this.

It's terribly terribly sad when it happens. I think about 50% of those with covid get blood clots, and the vaccine has been worked out to have saved 13,000 lives so far. That poor woman could have just as easily died of a covid related clot.

There isn’t a vaccine or medication in existence that doesn’t carry some risk and why we have a government fund since 1979 for vaccine damage. It’s 99.9% guaranteed that any treatments for covid will carry a risk too. Medicine so benign that it doesn’t cause any side effects probably wouldn’t work for it’s intended purpose either.

The other covid vaccinations also carry risks (Pfizer has been identified as the culprit in cases of heart inflammation off the top of my head and I’m sure there are ongoing investigations with moderna and J&J too); one of the reasons you’re particularly aware of the issues with AZ is because it’s been distributed on such a massive scale rather than any lack of testing etc. I can’t recall a vaccination programme done in a similar timescale with similar numbers to compare it to.

I’m not particularly defending the AZ vaccine but it’s important to look at it with some perspective. It’s not rat poison.

It’s interesting that people focus on the elderly with a multitude of health problems that die within a month of contracting Covid19… but the same people are dismissive of healthy young people dying within weeks of having the vaccine or developing heart problems, blood clots and migraines.

It’s stories like this that put me off the vaccine. I’m 32 so not massively at risk of covid, although an about to start immune-suppressants for psoriasis so am slightly more worried now.

Probably why they’re now advising following first dose of AZ with Pfizer- you ‘could’ have 9 times more antibodies allegedly. Not sure how that reassures double AZ vaxxed but that’s the latest now.

Interesting how Sky ran this article the same moments as 22k infections were reported and just 3 deaths which is great news.

Tbh @CoralSparkles it’s probably because a lot of people are also very aware of the wider effects indirect consequences for. the younger (i.e. not elderly) population and there has to be a choice made.

At the moment we’re faced with the choice of the elderly, vulnerable and outliers collapsing the health system (even temporarily with a small but significant number of the population not producing sufficient antibodies no matter their vaccine status) which isn’t great news for anyone of any age or younger age groups taking a small, but extra, risk to try and achieve some control of the actual virus itself as well as restart the economic and social side of life. It isn’t as cut and dried as get covid or don’t and we don’t particularly have the luxury of time, certainly not from an economic perspective.

It is really sad. It’s awful.

That said I don’t think it makes AZ a dangerous vaccine that shouldn’t be used. I’ve had AZ myself, and after these risks were known about, and I was okay with it. The risk of me getting covid and dying from it is pretty tiny, but the risk of me getting AZ vaccine and getting a blood clot and dying is even smaller, so the vaccine felt like the safer bet.

I rebooked my second AZ jab for tomorrow after cancelling it two weeks ago. I'm fairly sure I'm going to be able to go through with it this time, but until I'm sat in the chair having it done, I can't be sure.

I'm (un)happy to say that I have very irrational health anxieties and also tend to dwell on worst case scenarios the rest of the time as well. I'm very aware of the relative risks and I think most people hesitant about the vaccine are too, or as much as any of us are good with judging risks, but it's one thing to know that and another to make an active decision to put yourself in harms way, regardless of the level of risk.

I hate reading stories like this, even though I tell myself that they are in the papers because of the fact that they are so rare. COVID deaths are far more common so they don't get the same individual coverage. The fact that they are rare is no consolation to this poor woman and her family though, and will be little consolation to mine if it happens to me.

In the end, this blood clot is a total lottery where you just have to wait for it to happen to you (or not). Chances are it won't, but then why do so many people play the lottery if they don't believe that 'it could be you'?

I hate, hate, hate having to make this decision and hate the fact that some friends just think I'm some kind of anti-vaxx idiot for worrying about it. Thank you to those that are more understanding.

Is this the cost of protecting against covid?

Well, what is the cost of not protecting against Covid? Would we be better not to vaccinate anyone?

There have been so many stories about this happening I don't know what to feel anymore.

But there haven't though, have there? There have been a handful of stories that have made the news out of millions and millions who have been given the AZ vaccine.

People die in unforseen and tragic cirumstances every day because of adverse effects to a drug or an anaesthetic or the sudden onset of an allergy they didn't know they had, or clots from the contraceptive pill, DVTs after long haul plane trips etc etc. You just don't hear about them. Life will never be entirely risk free - we just have to weigh up which scanrio presents the most risk to us as individuals.

The simple fact is that the world won't get back to normal until most people have been vaccinated and you risk not being able to travel or live your life fully until you comply.

It's funny because it seems to be mostly the young and healthy who are vaccine sceptic. Understandable if they have no health problems, are not obese and are not in one of the higher risk ethnic groups - the chances of them of being very ill or dying from Covid are tiny. However the risk of that is still far higher than the risk of dying or being seriously ill as a result of the vaccine. And long covid is no joke either.

I'd love to know how many vaccine sceptics don't think twice about binge drinking, stuffing coke up their nose, taking other recreational drugs, smoking loads of weed or cigarettes, driving too fast, having unprotected sex with randoms, or partaking in high risk activies like skiing or horse riding. None of those are without considerable risk and your life could be devastated overnight if you are unlucky.

@TheVanguardSix

I hope you find a way through this

@NewLifeInTheSouth

There have been so many stories about this happening I don't know what to feel anymore.

But there haven't though, have there? There have been a handful of stories that have made the news out of millions and millions who have been given the AZ vaccine.

People die in unforseen and tragic cirumstances every day because of adverse effects to a drug or an anaesthetic or the sudden onset of an allergy they didn't know they had, or clots from the contraceptive pill, DVTs after long haul plane trips etc etc. You just don't hear about them. Life will never be entirely risk free - we just have to weigh up which scanrio presents the most risk to us as individuals.

The simple fact is that the world won't get back to normal until most people have been vaccinated and you risk not being able to travel or live your life fully until you comply.

It's funny because it seems to be mostly the young and healthy who are vaccine sceptic. Understandable if they have no health problems, are not obese and are not in one of the higher risk ethnic groups - the chances of them of being very ill or dying from Covid are tiny. However the risk of that is still far higher than the risk of dying or being seriously ill as a result of the vaccine. And long covid is no joke either.

I'd love to know how many vaccine sceptics don't think twice about binge drinking, stuffing coke up their nose, taking other recreational drugs, smoking loads of weed or cigarettes, driving too fast, having unprotected sex with randoms, or partaking in high risk activies like skiing or horse riding. None of those are without considerable risk and your life could be devastated overnight if you are unlucky.

And this is what I mean about those who are totally unsympathetic and simply unable to understand that it's not about not being able to judge the risk, or being stupid - it's about being able to physically make yourself act on it.

We're not all vaccine sceptics (a slightly more polite way of calling someone an anti-vaxxer). We know the risks and benefits, we just find it hard to do the rational thing, especially when these kind of stories are all around us.

Would you tell someone with a fear of spiders, or heights, or confined spaces just to 'get over it' and put the tarantula on your hand\look over the edge\crawl into the tunnel? Or would you actually have some empathy for people with those kind of fears? Why don't we get the same?

@CoralSparkles

It’s interesting that people focus on the elderly with a multitude of health problems that die within a month of contracting Covid19… but the same people are dismissive of healthy young people dying within weeks of having the vaccine or developing heart problems, blood clots and migraines.

And it's interesting how some people deliberately minimise covid deaths and highlight vaccine deaths. Like you have Its all about risk. Which has been said many many times before. And this will vary by individual, but shouldn't be about perception

@TheVanguardSix, thank you for such aeasured reflection under what must be dreadful circumstances for you and your family.

Individual cases are private tragedies but vaccination is the right thing to do at a population level. If she hadn't been vaccinated she could have died from covid. I'm the same age and had AZ, my dd had AZ (has sn so offered early, before they changed to Pfizer), it was a calculated risk having the second dose but we are statistically more likely to die from covid

So sorry for your loss @TheVanguardSix

@TheVanguardSix I’m so sorry about your brother

[quote BountyIsUnderrated]@MrsTerryPratchett

Well in that case critics will have to accept that not everyone will want AZ and will wait for an alternative.
I can't really blame them, it's simple human nature to be afraid even if the risk is low.[/quote]
People can wait if they like.

And for all those saying people don’t know how to calculate risk, all those people who have died after vaccination would have hoped they wouldn’t be a statistic but they were and that doesn’t make it any easier for their families and friends. I’m not anti vaccine, I’ve had both my AZ jabs but I wasn’t happy about it. I think people are right to be concerned and want to be able to have alternatives especially when other countries have banned it for younger age groups. A friend of mine had her 2nd AZ jab 4 weeks ago and is still suffering from horrendous vertigo and is still off work, for most people it will be fine but I can understand those who are nervous about having it.

@CoralSparkles

It’s interesting that people focus on the elderly with a multitude of health problems that die within a month of contracting Covid19… but the same people are dismissive of healthy young people dying within weeks of having the vaccine or developing heart problems, blood clots and migraines.

Exactly my thoughts !! It’s pretty disgusting how dismissive people are about vaccine deaths