5 ms·

Time will tell, but I'd put my money on a lot of undiscovered cases in Europe and the UK. Vaccinations have mostly been in elderly people who are at high risk o

by marvin 6y ago

Time will tell, but I'd put my money on a lot of undiscovered cases in Europe and the UK. Vaccinations have mostly been in elderly people who are at high risk of health complications anyway, it's only recently that younger populations started receiving the vaccine. And Norway is among the most paranoid of these countries, with good health data and monitoring. Norway has also had at least three serious cases with 130.000 people vaccinated, so the incidence is certainly higher than 1 per 2.3 million. At this point, with a plausible mechanism of action being discovered, it's either that or a "bad batch". But this doesn't seem like the kind of problem that would likely be caused by contamination or bad ingredients, and there's been enough time by now that the batch numbers behind the cases will have been thoroughly checked. This will be a very tricky ethical consideration, with not only weighing different risks between different age groups, but also the public's trust in vaccines and the advice provided by health authorities. My money says that AZ will be pulled from countries with few Covid deaths and/or other vaccine options available in the near term. And some controversy in countries that do not meet these criteria.

GavinMcG 6y ago
> Norway has also had at least three serious cases with 130.000 people vaccinated, so the incidence is certainly higher than 1 per 2.3 million. That's not how numbers work. You can't look at California, for example, and conclude that because 63% of voters chose Biden, his national vote share is certainly higher than 52%.
- marvin 6y ago
  It's 1 in 43.000 (Norway) versus 1 in 2.3 million (AZ numbers). That's a two orders of magnitude difference. While I can amend my statement to agree it's not certain that local factors and randomness haven't affected the outcome that much, it's a very suspicious observation.
  - GavinMcG 6y ago
    n=3 here. It's misplaced to be talking about orders of magnitude when a single case would drastically move the needle. If there were only one case in Norway (i.e. 1 in 130,000) it would still be orders of magnitude difference. But that's not meaningful.
    - bainsfather 6y ago
      If the rate were 1 in 2.3 million, then with 130,000 people vaccinated: p = 1/2,300,000 N = 130,000 Prob(0 cases) = (1 - p)*N = 0.9450... Prob(1 case) ~= p * N * (1 - p)*N = 0.0534... Prob(2 cases) ~= p*2 * (N*2 / 2) * (1 - p)*N = 0.0015... Prob(3 cases or more) = 1 - P(0) - P(1) - P(2) ~= 2.886e-05 Which is small enough to refute you comment, yes?
      - GavinMcG 6y ago
        No. The evidence against the rate being 1 in 2.3 million is that the total number of cases divided by the total number of people vaccinated is a higher rate. You can't take a subset of the population, find that that subset is out of step with the rate in the total population, and then conclude that the rate in the total population is wrong. The number of cases isn't necessarily evenly distributed, and your model is one that applies to independent random events. But the fact that a case occurred in Norway rather than in another country doesn't dramatically change the overall rate.
        marvin 6y ago
        This probably doesn't convince you, but as additional data, Norwegian authorities have now confirmed five hospitalizations due to this presumed side effect, two of which resulted in death. https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/i/86OmPr/drama-i-kulissene-paa-astrazeneca-moete-norge-tok-dissens https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/i/86OmPr/drama-i-kulisse... Of course, Norwegian health authorities point out in the interview that the ethical consideration will be different between countries, depending on expected vaccine delivery and local incidence of covid.
        6y ago
  - 5cents 6y ago
    According to VG is the German number close to 1 blood clot in 61.400 vaccinated Source: https://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/i/x32Xyl/tyskland-31-tilfeller-av-blodpropp-blant-astrazeneca-vaksinerte https://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/i/x32Xyl/tyskland-31-tilf...

by marvin 6y ago

GavinMcG 6y ago

> Norway has also had at least three serious cases with 130.000 people vaccinated, so the incidence is certainly higher than 1 per 2.3 million. That's not how numbers work. You can't look at California, for example, and conclude that because 63% of voters chose Biden, his national vote share is certainly higher than 52%.

marvin 6y ago
It's 1 in 43.000 (Norway) versus 1 in 2.3 million (AZ numbers). That's a two orders of magnitude difference. While I can amend my statement to agree it's not certain that local factors and randomness haven't affected the outcome that much, it's a very suspicious observation.
- GavinMcG 6y ago
  n=3 here. It's misplaced to be talking about orders of magnitude when a single case would drastically move the needle. If there were only one case in Norway (i.e. 1 in 130,000) it would still be orders of magnitude difference. But that's not meaningful.
  - bainsfather 6y ago
    If the rate were 1 in 2.3 million, then with 130,000 people vaccinated: p = 1/2,300,000 N = 130,000 Prob(0 cases) = (1 - p)*N = 0.9450... Prob(1 case) ~= p * N * (1 - p)*N = 0.0534... Prob(2 cases) ~= p*2 * (N*2 / 2) * (1 - p)*N = 0.0015... Prob(3 cases or more) = 1 - P(0) - P(1) - P(2) ~= 2.886e-05 Which is small enough to refute you comment, yes?
    - GavinMcG 6y ago
      No. The evidence against the rate being 1 in 2.3 million is that the total number of cases divided by the total number of people vaccinated is a higher rate. You can't take a subset of the population, find that that subset is out of step with the rate in the total population, and then conclude that the rate in the total population is wrong. The number of cases isn't necessarily evenly distributed, and your model is one that applies to independent random events. But the fact that a case occurred in Norway rather than in another country doesn't dramatically change the overall rate.
      - marvin 6y ago
        This probably doesn't convince you, but as additional data, Norwegian authorities have now confirmed five hospitalizations due to this presumed side effect, two of which resulted in death. https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/i/86OmPr/drama-i-kulissene-paa-astrazeneca-moete-norge-tok-dissens https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/i/86OmPr/drama-i-kulisse... Of course, Norwegian health authorities point out in the interview that the ethical consideration will be different between countries, depending on expected vaccine delivery and local incidence of covid.
        6y ago
- 5cents 6y ago
  According to VG is the German number close to 1 blood clot in 61.400 vaccinated Source: https://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/i/x32Xyl/tyskland-31-tilfeller-av-blodpropp-blant-astrazeneca-vaksinerte https://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/i/x32Xyl/tyskland-31-tilf...