4 ms·

>the incidence of the clot is likely lower than the incidence rate in the population in general It's lower than the incidence rate of general blood clots, not

>the incidence of the clot is likely lower than the incidence rate in the population in general It's lower than the incidence rate of general blood clots, not than that specific type of blood clots. One of Norway's chief physicians (not just some quack) concluded that the clots are indeed due to the AstraZeneca vaccine: https://sciencenorway.no/covid19/norwegian-experts-say-deadly-blood-clots-were-caused-by-the-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine/1830510 https://sciencenorway.no/covid19/norwegian-experts-say-deadl... . At the time that occured, only 130,000 people had been vaccinated in Norway, and so the four deaths of people under age 50 resulting from the clots actually suggested the AstraZeneca might be more dangerous to young people than Covid (which has a less than 4/130,000 fatality rate for the young).

newacct583 6y ago
I don't see how you can "conclude" that with N=30, though. If these numbers were the basis for a study about some unimportant thing submitted to a peer reviewed journal it would be thoroughly laughed at and rejected. AZ is safe. Get your shots, people.
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  > AZ is safe. Get your shots, people. This attitude is what is causing people to distrust authorities.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    Rather, treating understanding of numbers and statistics as an "attitude" seems to be more of a problem to my eyes. AZ is safe. That's not a statement of opinion. Get. Your. Shot.
    - mrlonglong 6y ago
      It's ONE in 600,000. Very safe. I got my AZ shot two weeks ago.
    - strken 6y ago
      It's really not helpful to say "Get. Your. Shot." in a threatening way to someone who's on the fence about getting vaccinated. It's a lot better to try to understand them and walk through their decision, and (gently!) question whether why they've taken the advice of a Facebook post over that of their doctor, or how they're comparing the (huge) risks of COVID infection against the (tiny yet highly publicised) risks of getting vaccinated.
      - newacct583 6y ago
        The upthread poster wasn't "on the fence". I read that comment as vaccine denialism, not indecision. And misinformation needs to be called out as such, not coddled.
        strken 6y ago
        "Denialism" runs the gamut from your undecided aunt who read a Facebook post and can be talked around in five minutes, through to actual strong opposition to vaccines based on years of conspiracy theories, and absolutely none of the people on that gamut respond well to unsourced claims that a vaccine is safe. If you want to feel smug and superior, make dogmatic statements. If you want to change opinions, then you have to treat denialists with respect for their humanity, and separate the person from the opinion.
    - Al-Khwarizmi 6y ago
      OK, let's do some numbers and statistics then. Norway has 3.414.711 people under 50, of which 13 have died from COVID since the start of the pandemic. Approximately one per month. Source: https://dc-covid.site.ined.fr/en/data/norway/ https://dc-covid.site.ined.fr/en/data/norway/ Thus, if you're under 50 in Norway, your risk of dying from COVID in the next 3 months is approximately 1 in 1 million. This is even lower for younger age groups (e.g. the population under 40 is 2.691.048 and only 3 have died in the whole pandemic). The estimates on the risk of death from these clots range from 1 in 100.000 to 1 in 1 million. So tell me again, how is it that obvious from the numbers that, say, a Norwegian 25-year-old woman should get her AZ shot instead of waiting for Pfizer/Moderna/J&J to be plentiful in 3 months? Note that I'll probably get AZ myself if offered (for several reasons, notably including that COVID also comes with other risks apart from death, and also I'm from a country with more incidence than Norway). But no, it's not an obvious choice. And indeed, that kind of arrogant attitude does cause distrust. By the way, I would take a 1:10 that you're American because 99% of the arrogant posts lecturing Europeans to take our AZ shots come from there. Of course, it's easy to speak so categorically from a country where you don't even need to make the decision of taking AZ or waiting for a better vaccine. The FDA shields you from that inconvenience by not even bothering to approve it, and your doses will end up being sent to Canada and Mexico. So basically, you don't have to decide to accept or refuse AZ because your institutions have already decided to refuse it (and rightly so, any country would do it if they were swimming in other vaccines... but then let's not pretend that they are all the same).
      - newacct583 6y ago
        > The estimates on the risk of death from these clots range from 1 in 100.000 to 1 in 1 million. Cite? That's absolutely not consistent with the 7-fatality (yes, seven) value listed above.
        Al-Khwarizmi 6y ago
        The 7 fatalities come from the UK, where the numbers are considerably better than in some other countries. In Norway there have been four deaths of over 50s with less than 200K vaccinations, which is especially bad, in Germany it's somewhere in between. The 1 in 100K estimate comes from the EMA. Here they report it: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56616119 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56616119 "The EMA, which has assessed data from around the world, estimates there is around a one in 100,000 risk of a CVST in people under the age of 60 who have been given the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine" (not the primary source, but it's quite clear that the British national media station would not have a bias against the British vaccine...)
- fabatka 6y ago
  Well, I don't think it is impossible: for example if N is usually 10+-2 cases each year, then N=30 is very unlikely to be just a statistical artifact. Usually N denotes the sample size, but in this case the sample size is <the number of people under 55 vaccinated with AZ>. Edit: clarification
- ninjinxo 6y ago
  I don't know how you can "deliver" such snark; if you gave 100 people shots and 30 developed clots, by your erroneous reasoning, N = 30. What matters is the number of clots relative to the normal (incidence) rate, and the odds that you'd find 30 clots when sampling a randomized size-matched subset of the total population. Please don't try to talk with authority on a topic when you're undereducated, aside from coming across as an ass, your brazen confidence and lack of knowledge just gives room to counter-argue that would instead harm your supported causes.
LatteLazy 6y ago
Is it a lot less? China and Spain both reported 0.2% death rate in the 20-29 range. 4/130,000 is 0.03% The worst case scenario for vaccine side effect seems to be almost 7 times better than the disease. https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid
- the_mitsuhiko 6y ago
  Careful with this comparison: you want to vaccinate 100% of the population but get as few as possible to contract coronavirus. This means that you cannot compare fatality rate of the infected vs fatality rate of the vaccinated and extrapolate to the entire population. In Norway if the trend of AZ fatalities were to continue they would quickly have more deaths of AZ below 55 than the virus claimed.
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    Edit: ah, you're saying if we vaccinate 100% that's but only 50% were ever going to get covid then we need to allow for twice the vaccine side effects compared to covid issues? Original comment: I'm not sure I follow your logic? Haven't we already allowed for that by comparing via percentages? Unless we expect younger people to have a higher rate of side effects? Sorry if I'm being dull...
DangerousPie 6y ago
Where are you getting those numbers from? Based on Figure 2 of this paper the IFR for people 35-39 is between 0.01 and 0.1%. So in 130,000 infected people you would still expect between 13 and 130 to die from covid. And that's ignoring all sorts of other issues, like the amount of people that will need to be hospitalised, long covid, etc. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0
tonfa 6y ago
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/03/astrazeneca-vaccine-blood-clot-issue-wont-go-away/618451/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/03/astrazene... Was a pretty good overview of the issues

newacct583 6y ago

I don't see how you can "conclude" that with N=30, though. If these numbers were the basis for a study about some unimportant thing submitted to a peer reviewed journal it would be thoroughly laughed at and rejected. AZ is safe. Get your shots, people.

smnrchrds 6y ago
> AZ is safe. Get your shots, people. This attitude is what is causing people to distrust authorities.
- newacct583 6y ago
  Rather, treating understanding of numbers and statistics as an "attitude" seems to be more of a problem to my eyes. AZ is safe. That's not a statement of opinion. Get. Your. Shot.
  - mrlonglong 6y ago
    It's ONE in 600,000. Very safe. I got my AZ shot two weeks ago.
  - strken 6y ago
    It's really not helpful to say "Get. Your. Shot." in a threatening way to someone who's on the fence about getting vaccinated. It's a lot better to try to understand them and walk through their decision, and (gently!) question whether why they've taken the advice of a Facebook post over that of their doctor, or how they're comparing the (huge) risks of COVID infection against the (tiny yet highly publicised) risks of getting vaccinated.
    - newacct583 6y ago
      The upthread poster wasn't "on the fence". I read that comment as vaccine denialism, not indecision. And misinformation needs to be called out as such, not coddled.
      - strken 6y ago
        "Denialism" runs the gamut from your undecided aunt who read a Facebook post and can be talked around in five minutes, through to actual strong opposition to vaccines based on years of conspiracy theories, and absolutely none of the people on that gamut respond well to unsourced claims that a vaccine is safe. If you want to feel smug and superior, make dogmatic statements. If you want to change opinions, then you have to treat denialists with respect for their humanity, and separate the person from the opinion.
  - Al-Khwarizmi 6y ago
    OK, let's do some numbers and statistics then. Norway has 3.414.711 people under 50, of which 13 have died from COVID since the start of the pandemic. Approximately one per month. Source: https://dc-covid.site.ined.fr/en/data/norway/ https://dc-covid.site.ined.fr/en/data/norway/ Thus, if you're under 50 in Norway, your risk of dying from COVID in the next 3 months is approximately 1 in 1 million. This is even lower for younger age groups (e.g. the population under 40 is 2.691.048 and only 3 have died in the whole pandemic). The estimates on the risk of death from these clots range from 1 in 100.000 to 1 in 1 million. So tell me again, how is it that obvious from the numbers that, say, a Norwegian 25-year-old woman should get her AZ shot instead of waiting for Pfizer/Moderna/J&J to be plentiful in 3 months? Note that I'll probably get AZ myself if offered (for several reasons, notably including that COVID also comes with other risks apart from death, and also I'm from a country with more incidence than Norway). But no, it's not an obvious choice. And indeed, that kind of arrogant attitude does cause distrust. By the way, I would take a 1:10 that you're American because 99% of the arrogant posts lecturing Europeans to take our AZ shots come from there. Of course, it's easy to speak so categorically from a country where you don't even need to make the decision of taking AZ or waiting for a better vaccine. The FDA shields you from that inconvenience by not even bothering to approve it, and your doses will end up being sent to Canada and Mexico. So basically, you don't have to decide to accept or refuse AZ because your institutions have already decided to refuse it (and rightly so, any country would do it if they were swimming in other vaccines... but then let's not pretend that they are all the same).
    - newacct583 6y ago
      > The estimates on the risk of death from these clots range from 1 in 100.000 to 1 in 1 million. Cite? That's absolutely not consistent with the 7-fatality (yes, seven) value listed above.
      - Al-Khwarizmi 6y ago
        The 7 fatalities come from the UK, where the numbers are considerably better than in some other countries. In Norway there have been four deaths of over 50s with less than 200K vaccinations, which is especially bad, in Germany it's somewhere in between. The 1 in 100K estimate comes from the EMA. Here they report it: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56616119 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56616119 "The EMA, which has assessed data from around the world, estimates there is around a one in 100,000 risk of a CVST in people under the age of 60 who have been given the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine" (not the primary source, but it's quite clear that the British national media station would not have a bias against the British vaccine...)
fabatka 6y ago
Well, I don't think it is impossible: for example if N is usually 10+-2 cases each year, then N=30 is very unlikely to be just a statistical artifact. Usually N denotes the sample size, but in this case the sample size is <the number of people under 55 vaccinated with AZ>. Edit: clarification
ninjinxo 6y ago
I don't know how you can "deliver" such snark; if you gave 100 people shots and 30 developed clots, by your erroneous reasoning, N = 30. What matters is the number of clots relative to the normal (incidence) rate, and the odds that you'd find 30 clots when sampling a randomized size-matched subset of the total population. Please don't try to talk with authority on a topic when you're undereducated, aside from coming across as an ass, your brazen confidence and lack of knowledge just gives room to counter-argue that would instead harm your supported causes.

LatteLazy 6y ago

Is it a lot less? China and Spain both reported 0.2% death rate in the 20-29 range. 4/130,000 is 0.03% The worst case scenario for vaccine side effect seems to be almost 7 times better than the disease. https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid

the_mitsuhiko 6y ago
Careful with this comparison: you want to vaccinate 100% of the population but get as few as possible to contract coronavirus. This means that you cannot compare fatality rate of the infected vs fatality rate of the vaccinated and extrapolate to the entire population. In Norway if the trend of AZ fatalities were to continue they would quickly have more deaths of AZ below 55 than the virus claimed.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  Edit: ah, you're saying if we vaccinate 100% that's but only 50% were ever going to get covid then we need to allow for twice the vaccine side effects compared to covid issues? Original comment: I'm not sure I follow your logic? Haven't we already allowed for that by comparing via percentages? Unless we expect younger people to have a higher rate of side effects? Sorry if I'm being dull...

DangerousPie 6y ago

Where are you getting those numbers from? Based on Figure 2 of this paper the IFR for people 35-39 is between 0.01 and 0.1%. So in 130,000 infected people you would still expect between 13 and 130 to die from covid. And that's ignoring all sorts of other issues, like the amount of people that will need to be hospitalised, long covid, etc. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0

tonfa 6y ago

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/03/astrazeneca-vaccine-blood-clot-issue-wont-go-away/618451/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/03/astrazene... Was a pretty good overview of the issues