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It's still too early for the general public to draw conclusions from the data provided. Derek Lowe had some early observations on these numbers and their signif

It's still too early for the general public to draw conclusions from the data provided. Derek Lowe had some early observations on these numbers and their significance in regards to the critical missing data needed to make decisions: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/03/16/what-is-going-on-with-the-astrazeneca-oxford-vaccine https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/03/16/wh... > "...they say that is indeed “much lower than would be expected to occur naturally in a general population of this size“. It also appears to be similar to what’s been seen with the other coronavirus vaccines..." Until we know the methods and expectations behind numbers provided, naively taking them at face value suggests that this vaccine reduces the risk of these blood clots in the general pre-covid population. In the absence of statistically robust information about these alerts, we're stuck assuming that the experts know what they're doing until the detailed work is available and recognizing that (as Derek pointed out months ago) public attention is going to find focus on the inevitable mortality and illness rates without accomodating that people also die and have health issues for other reasons. Watch a random selection of 17 million people for a month, a five digit number of them will die. More if they're predominantly on the elder end of the scale...

mchusma 6y ago
Derek did a good job on this issue, both warning it would happen before and re-emphasizing that it's most likely statistical anomaly. Even if the blood clots were a result of the AZ vaccine, it would still make more sense for most people to take the vaccine (I would), so a ban is entirely unjustified. Governments banning their citizens from taking Astrazeneca should use accurate language "it's banned" instead of the language "pause rollout". Taking a COVID vaccine is a choice individuals make and governments have denied them during a pandemic.
- petre 6y ago
  I guess I'll take my 2.35e-6 chance (40 in 17M) to get blood clots over a 1.6e-3 chance to contact covid (4‰ infection rate) and die from it (4% mortality rate).
- kwhitefoot 6y ago
  > Governments banning their citizens from taking Astrazeneca should use accurate language "it's banned" instead of the language "pause rollout". Pausing is exactly what is happening here in Norway. And the government is not involved, all these decisions her in Norway have been made by the relevant medical institutions.
Dagonfly 6y ago
At least the german Paul-Ehrlich-Institut (which is responsible for the decision here in Germany) states [1]: > "The number of these cases after vaccination with COVID-19 AstraZeneca is statistically significantly higher than the number of cerebral venous thromboses that normally occur in the unvaccinated population. For this purpose, an observed-versus-expected analysis was performed, comparing the number of cases expected without vaccination in a 14-day time window with the number of cases reported after approximately 1.6 million AstraZeneca vaccinations in Germany. About one case would have been expected, and seven cases had been reported. 1 expected vs 7 observed seems significant. Of course, with tiny rates like that it's challenging to draw a clear conclusion. Their whole FAQ is very concise and informative: [1] https://www.pei.de/EN/service/faq/coronavirus/faq-coronavirus-node.html?cms_tabcounter=3 https://www.pei.de/EN/service/faq/coronavirus/faq-coronaviru...
- raducu 6y ago
  Also, even if we know for sure it's because of the vaccine and of those additional 6 cases, 3 died, we have to keep in mind how many more people would die from covid in 1.6M unvaccinated individuals.

mchusma 6y ago

Derek did a good job on this issue, both warning it would happen before and re-emphasizing that it's most likely statistical anomaly. Even if the blood clots were a result of the AZ vaccine, it would still make more sense for most people to take the vaccine (I would), so a ban is entirely unjustified. Governments banning their citizens from taking Astrazeneca should use accurate language "it's banned" instead of the language "pause rollout". Taking a COVID vaccine is a choice individuals make and governments have denied them during a pandemic.

petre 6y ago
I guess I'll take my 2.35e-6 chance (40 in 17M) to get blood clots over a 1.6e-3 chance to contact covid (4‰ infection rate) and die from it (4% mortality rate).
kwhitefoot 6y ago
> Governments banning their citizens from taking Astrazeneca should use accurate language "it's banned" instead of the language "pause rollout". Pausing is exactly what is happening here in Norway. And the government is not involved, all these decisions her in Norway have been made by the relevant medical institutions.

Dagonfly 6y ago

At least the german Paul-Ehrlich-Institut (which is responsible for the decision here in Germany) states [1]: > "The number of these cases after vaccination with COVID-19 AstraZeneca is statistically significantly higher than the number of cerebral venous thromboses that normally occur in the unvaccinated population. For this purpose, an observed-versus-expected analysis was performed, comparing the number of cases expected without vaccination in a 14-day time window with the number of cases reported after approximately 1.6 million AstraZeneca vaccinations in Germany. About one case would have been expected, and seven cases had been reported. 1 expected vs 7 observed seems significant. Of course, with tiny rates like that it's challenging to draw a clear conclusion. Their whole FAQ is very concise and informative: [1] https://www.pei.de/EN/service/faq/coronavirus/faq-coronavirus-node.html?cms_tabcounter=3 https://www.pei.de/EN/service/faq/coronavirus/faq-coronaviru...

raducu 6y ago
Also, even if we know for sure it's because of the vaccine and of those additional 6 cases, 3 died, we have to keep in mind how many more people would die from covid in 1.6M unvaccinated individuals.