Important point! I start to get anxiety that there might be some Chernobyl level incompetence building up in our bureaucratic countries. I feel like we are getting to levels of a huge quantities of regulations, where then to unblock the process, relevant regulations are relaxed to be able to move forward, leaving us with a lot of regulations that make us feel safe, while the elephant in the room is building up through other valves. I fell like the 737 max thing also more or less fits this framework. So for the future: Let them incentives be aligned and them regulations work in the right direction!

We don't have time for that, we can't wait for some government panel to announce in 2025 "actually the blood clots were no more common than in the general population"

I hope it's being invested thoroughly by the people that know this stuff inside out, from AZ, Oxford and doctors on the ground where this has happened

Damn right a government panel is useless here!

Germany for example has nearly 2 million doses they are delaying, so that's ~300 deaths per day that are caused by these delays. If you delay by a fortnight that's more deaths than on 9/11.

Last I saw it's 30 blood-clot deaths. Given the number of people that have received the vaccine that's a tiny, tiny amount. Even if those 30 were directly linkable to the vaccine (and so far no such link has been proven) you could still make the argument that the benefits of mass vaccinations outweigh the concern.

I don't envy anyone in charge of making those choices, though.

Usually I don't read notes coming with meds, but I am almost sure that even everyday stuff has potentially deadly side effects in the ball park number of the blood cloths AZ is causing.

Yes, some drugs have pretty nasty side effects, but vaccines are rather special, because their acceptance affects the entire society and vaccine safety is a sensitive topic, especially in a climate of skepticism. Undermining the idea of vaccine safety will be much worse than Covid (at least at this time).

And there would probably be an investigation into that the moment people using them showed up growing a third arm instead of getting a trombose.

Apparently EU vaccines are produced in Europe, maybe there's something wrong in the local production facilities that's causing this. UK has only used AZ vaccines produced in the UK, afaik.

The equation changes when otherwise young and healthy individuals are at risk of serious complications, even if exceedingly rare.

> I don’t know anyone in pharmacovigilance who thinks what is happening now in EU states is rational based on known information.

> EMA had this right last week. We are seeing panic spread at EU state level.

https://twitter.com/isth/status/1370424157947752452

> The [International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis] recommends all eligible adults continue to receive the #COVID19 vaccine, despite recent decisions by some countries to at least temporarily suspend the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine due to reports of thrombosis. Read the full statement here: https://isth.org/news/556057

I would challenge the term "caution", as it implies giving the vaccine is more risky than not.

> Difficult to call, but I hope it's all being investigated thoroughly

I agree there. But rather not for medical reasons.

I suppose it depends on the alternative - if it's "not having the vaccine" clearly that's worse. If it's "controlling the death rate by prolonging lockdowns" then that's clearly not desirable either, but not quite as bad.

If it's just "give a different vaccine", then that would be no problem. Of course then there are the supply issues it's unlikely that simple.

The majority of people getting the vaccinations are older. Perhaps we will see more cases will emerge for the younger age groups.