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Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

178 points by reddotX 5y ago

throwaway4good 5y ago
Combined with the JnJ halt this postpones Denmark's vaccine program from vaccinating all grown-ups this summer to year's end instead.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  The article says it’s a four week pushback and that 70%+ are already getting Pfizer.
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    Why not allocate most of the Pfizer to the young and give the AZ exclusively to the older people?
    - mantap 5y ago
      Theoretically Pfizer has higher efficacy, especially with variants. Giving Pfizer to the old and AZ to the young probably saves more lives than the other way around. If you decide that you don't want to give AZ to the young any more, it doesn't follow that it's then a good idea to give it to the old, especially if you have enough supplies of Pfizer to vaccinate the old.
      - sbuk 5y ago
        All the vaccines have 100% efficacy in preventing ICU admissions so far.
        throwaway4good 5y ago
        You should be careful comparing numbers from vaccines as they are collected in different environments; there were fewer variants present when first vaccines were on trail.
        mzs 5y ago
        not quite >Hospitalization data for 129 of the fully vaccinated cases is incomplete, Sutfin said. But for the 117 people for whom hospitalization records are known, 11 were hospitalized. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/04/06/vaccinated-covid-19-contract-virus-coronavirus/7101678002/ https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/04/06/v... "However, since February 1, eight people with vaccine breakthrough have been hospitalized. DOH is investigating two potential vaccine breakthrough cases where the patients died." https://www.doh.wa.gov/Newsroom/Articles/ID/2720/Cases-of-COVID-19-vaccine-breakthrough-confirmed-in-Washington-state https://www.doh.wa.gov/Newsroom/Articles/ID/2720/Cases-of-CO...
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        Hospitalizations are not necessarily ICU admissions. (We should expect some ICU admissions, though. A perfect 100% is not going to hold forever, but that it's taking this long is a really great sign.)
    - yokaze 5y ago
      It all comes down to guessing how to best convince the unconvinced to actually vaccinate. People usually react badly to getting "second-class medicine", if it is mandated. (Elderly people were asking, which vaccine they would get the good-one or the bad-one, literally). I would suggest to simply offer both to everyone and leave people the choice, if they want to risk a one-in-a-million chance of complications (for women, 0 for men AFAIK) or get the other 4 weeks later with the associated risks. And there are people who are a bit iffy about mRNA vaccines.
      - yokaze 5y ago
        Correction: The risk is not 0 for men, only a fair bit lower.
        caddemon 5y ago
        Also it's more like 1 in 100K for women with AZ. Still very unlikely so I don't understand the need for people to under state it by 10x.
        yokaze 5y ago
        From Science Table Covid-19 Advisory board to Ontario: https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Science-Brief_AstraZeneca_Hospital-Guide_20210402_published.pdf https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/S... Which is the newest I could find on that matter. > VIPIT seems to be rare, occurring in anywhere from 1 in every 125,000 to 1 in 1 million people So, 1 in 100K seems to be the number to be on the safe side. But with rather rare events, it is probably hard to get an exact number there.
        caddemon 5y ago
        If I'm reading the source used by that link correctly though, the 1 million number comes from taking total number vaccinated as the denominator. My understanding was if you are a young woman, the estimate is closer to 1 in 100K. If you aren't it's probably even less likely than 1 in a million.
    - rsynnott 5y ago
      Does Denmark actually have older people to give it to? A lot of EU countries are restricting it to over 60s only, but AFAIK the Denmark vaccine program has gone quicker than most EU ones; there may not be many if any over 60s available.
      - erk__ 5y ago
        This decision delays the vaccine program with around 2 weeks 65+ will be done in the end of week 17 and 50+ in end of week 21. In the danish source below you can on the last pages see the before and after calender with the decision. Source in Danish: https://www.sst.dk/-/media/Udgivelser/2021/Corona/Vaccination/Notater/Notat-vedr-fortsat-udrulning-af-COVID-19-vaccine-i-Danmark-uden-Vaxzevria140421.ashx https://www.sst.dk/-/media/Udgivelser/2021/Corona/Vaccinatio...
    - throwaway4good 5y ago
      They used to give AZ to mostly younger people as the side effects where seen to be stronger than for the PFE. A fear could be that when they start to give the PFE to younger people, they will see the same stuff as with AZ as it triggers the same immune response.
      - caddemon 5y ago
        Pfizer has been distributed to many young people in other countries though and no such issue has popped up. Not saying it's outside the realm of possibility, but I think it's increasingly unlikely. Plus it'd be no surprise to me for the mRNA vaccines to have somewhat different side effect profile than the "traditional" ones.
        throwaway4good 5y ago
        It also seems that different countries have different criterias for what side effects they tolerate.
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  Do they not have the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines?
  - dataking 5y ago
    Article says they do.
- emptyfile 5y ago
  [citation needed]
  - throwaway4good 5y ago
    https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/professor-efter-vaccine-stop-fra-johnson-johnson-har-vi-kun-pfizer-og-moderna-er-vi https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/professor-efter-vaccine-st... After vaccine stop by Johnson & Johnson: If we only have Pfizer and Moderna we won't be finished until end of 2021
    - abricot 5y ago
      That is a guess made by one person. The article doesn't indicate that they really say down and did the math.
alkonaut 5y ago
Not giving it to 65+ people seems overly cautious. There are zero cases in that group and even just a small delay will mean many dead. This is trading a potential unlikely side effect for a large number of severe Covid cases in high risk groups. Edit: yes I'm aware they have only a dozen or so dead per week but that also translates to hundreds of severe cases, missed elective surgeries, etc. For what would most likely result in zero side effects in the elderly group.
- silon42 5y ago
  For now, I agree, probably best to keep using it. But if turns out there is need to re-vaccinate yearly (2x again), the decision is not as obvious.
- gms7777 5y ago
  It's a real world example of a trolley problem. They're choosing to let a large group risk severe disease or death through inaction, rather than pulling the lever and have a small group be at risk due to their actions.
  - monster_group 5y ago
    Correct. But to me it seems that pulling the lever to kill a few would be considered more culpable from legal perspective rather than not doing so (and let more people die). IANAL - I am curious to know how law perceives it.
    - busymom0 5y ago
      Don't the COVID vaccine companies enjoy blanket immunity? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-astrazeneca-results-vaccine-liability-idUSKCN24V2EN https://www.reuters.com/article/us-astrazeneca-results-vacci...
  - hef19898 5y ago
    Slowely I'm getting the impression that a lot of decisions around AZ are politically driven. In Germany, the new recommendation is now to use Biontech for the second shot after AZ. In that recommendation, it is also stated that there are no studies nor data supporting that. Quite funny, because there is, to my understanding, a study taking place in the Uk for that. It is expected to be done by end of April. Someone has to explain to me why that recommendation couldn't wait until there is data.
kasperni 5y ago
A medical description of one of the danish cases is currently in preprint https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-408726/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-408726/v1
- raverbashing 5y ago
  Thanks for the link. No treatment with immunoglobulin was given in this case, which might explain why it ended unfavorably.
  - marvin 5y ago
    Also, if you're interested, the team of doctors at three Norwegian hospitals have just published their case study of the 5 Norwegian healthcare workers who experienced these rare blood clots. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2104882 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2104882 The authors conclude "Although rare, VITT is a new phenomenon with devastating effects for otherwise healthy young adults and requires a thorough risk–benefit analysis. The findings of our study indicate that VITT may be more frequent than has been found in previous studies in which the safety of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine has been investigated."
    - raverbashing 5y ago
      Thanks, this report is, while describing rare events, sobering
mellosouls 5y ago
This seems like another overreaction that will be interpreted - rightly or wrongly - in the UK in political (Brexit) terms rather than medical or scientific (although they are clearly an important consideration). It's difficult to see how Denmark isn't failing its population with this decision.
- 0-_-0 5y ago
  The sad part is that AstraZeneca chose to sell the vaccine at cost, making no profit. This amount of negative publicity with no good reason will make them (and others) think twice about such a gesture.
  - hannob 5y ago
    Like half of the bad publicity for AZ is their own fault. The blood clotting issue is not, but the bad studies and the poor communication totally are. Getting a warning letter from an US agency for publishing outdated data in a press release is quite a feat.
    - 0-_-0 5y ago
      "The company says the agreed cut-off point for data was 17 February, by which time there had been 141 cases and efficacy was 79%. Within 48 hours, AstraZeneca had added more recent data. On a total of 190 cases, there was 76% efficacy (and as always 100% against severe illness and death). It’s not much of a difference." [0] [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/26/how-the-astrazeneca-vaccine-became-a-political-football-and-a-pr-disaster https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/26/how-the-ast...
      - ethanbond 5y ago
        Is this supposed to be some mitigation? A pharma company has a responsibility to publish accurate and up to date data. Full stop.
      - makomk 5y ago
lordnacho 5y ago
Did this happen in the trials? I'm surprised, you'd think the risk - benefit balance would fall in favour of vaccinating.
- hannob 5y ago
  The trials were too small to detect these rare side effects. There are limits of what you can find in a trial. That's why there's sideeffect monitoring after you put something into realworld use.
- MagnumOpus 5y ago
  A one-in-a-million effect doesn’t show up in trials that are run on 30,000 people. (Even if it does happen once, it is hard to quantify because these clots happen without the vaccine too, only maybe half/one-third as often.)
okintheory 5y ago
The graphic in this Guardian article [1] suggests that for age 40+ the number of covid-related ICU admissions prevented vs. no. blood clots has a factor 10 gap. Of course, clots might be more severe than ICU admission. But still, it looks to me like stopping for over 40 is a huge mistake. Very disappointing. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/07/under-30s-in-uk-should-be-offered-alternative-covid-vaccine-to-astrazeneca-jab-says-regulator https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/07/under-30s-in...
- makomk 5y ago
  Yeah, and that's based on the relatively low levels of Covid in the UK recently too... I'm not sure there's anywhere in Europe whose Covid outbreak is currently as under control as the UK's.
- sofixa 5y ago
  In Scandinavia it seems that the amount of cases with blood clots are higher than in the rest of the world.
Ensorceled 5y ago
I do not understand the math going on here and in multiple countries: a very rare side effect that we can't even clearly attribute to the AZ vaccine, and now the J&J vaccine, VS the clear and present danger of a deadly pandemic: COVID and emerging, more lethal variants.
- caddemon 5y ago
  For AZ the evidence is pretty strong the clots are a real side effect. It is indeed rare, but it mostly effects young people, who are extremely unlikely to die from COVID. I don't understand discontinuing entirely, but given the vaccine alternatives available I think it makes perfect sense to direct young people elsewhere.
refurb 5y ago
That’s seems like a bit draconian. There is no “safe drug”, “unsafe drug”. It’s a continuum and it’s balanced by the benefit. I find it hard to believe there isn’t a subgroup where the benefit of the vaccine doesn’t outweigh the risk.
- da_chicken 5y ago
  There certainly is, but there's also other vaccines which don't exhibit this problem. Why should we administer AstraZenica or J&J when Moderna and Pfizer are available and don't have any correlated blood clot issues?
  - Tenoke 5y ago
    Because they aren't 'available'. The EU is currently at just 15% vaccinated. Stopping the use of some vaccines means it will take longer and longer to vaccinate people during which time more people will die, not to even speak of the other negative effects of the prolonged pandemic.
  - drdec 5y ago
    Because in the during the four week delay in vaccinations many more people will die from Covid-19 than would be affected by side effects from the AZ or JJ vaccines. The truly responsible thing to do is to continue to administer the AZ and JJ vaccines until the other vaccines are available.
  - refurb 5y ago
    Supply. I would agree with you otherwise, but if we rely solely on Pfizer and Moderna it’s going to be well into 2022 before the Western countries get vaccinated. I read today Canada was supposed to take deliver of 10M AZ doses, which would vaccinate ~1/7th of their population. That’s not happening now.
  - croon 5y ago
    Because people are waiting for vaccines and getting the disease instead? There exists no other vaccines until they are in a person's arm. AZ shots are currently available in X quantity for people. The others are not.
amelius 5y ago
Did they even compute/estimate how many more people are going to die because of this decision, or how many will be saved? Also, since experts have said that the side-effects occur because of an immune-reaction to the adenovirus that is used as the delivery mechanism of the vaccine, what are the chances that the people who have side-effects would die (or at least have the same kind of complications) from covid?
- Dah00n 5y ago
  Denmark are done giving vaccines to 65 and older on Friday. How many do you think can die in a few days that a vaccine could have saved?
  - fooofw 5y ago
    The current official Danish vaccine calendar [1] (updated April 14) estimates that the group of citizens between 74 and 65 years will complete vaccination end of May. [1] https://www.sst.dk/-/media/Udgivelser/2021/Corona/Vaccination/Kalender/Vaccinationskalender-14042021.ashx https://www.sst.dk/-/media/Udgivelser/2021/Corona/Vaccinatio... (in Danish)
amelius 5y ago
Perhaps they should close their roads too, because people die from traffic accidents ...
- cameronh90 5y ago
  Denmark (along with the other Scandinavian countries and the UK) have almost the lowest traffic-related death rate in the world too. As far as I can tell, Denmark are reporting such a high rate of death from the AZ vaccine relative to the number of doses deployed, that the risk would actually be quite bad compared to driving. However, the absolute numbers are tiny so the uncertainty is enormous. It's quite possible they were just unlucky.
  - amelius 5y ago
    The number of traffic-related fatalities in Denmark is around 200 per year, see e.g. [1]. Blood clots appear in 4 per 1M people (UK numbers, [3]) or 10 per 1M (Denmark numbers, [2]). That would mean about 24 to 58 Danish people would get blood clots from their first shot. Denmark had 2447 covid deaths, [4]. If you zoom in on certain age-groups, then perhaps Denmark's decision could still make sense, though. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/573861/number-of-traffic-acciedent-fatalities-in-denmark/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/573861/number-of-traffic... [2] https://www.thelocal.com/20210318/ten-blood-clot-cases-found-in-denmark-after-astrazeneca-vaccination/ https://www.thelocal.com/20210318/ten-blood-clot-cases-found... [3] https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/medicine/covid-19-vaccination-and-blood-clots-by-the-numbers/ https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/medicine/covid-19-vaccinat... [4] https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19 https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19
    - ejolto 5y ago
      [2] states: > ten cases of blood clots have been found in Denmark in people subsequent to taking the AstraZeneca vaccine. and later, > A total of 140,000 people in Denmark have received at least one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. If you extrapolate these numbers you would expect ~410 patients with blood clots from AZ if you gave the vaccine to everyone in Denmark.
maxehmookau 5y ago
What a huge shame. The risk/benefit analysis does not support this decision at all. The risks of blot clotting from a variety of other sources are orders of magnitude higher (looking at you hormonal contraception) but those are risks that large sections of the population gladly accept.
- Dah00n 5y ago
  How does the risk/benefit not support it when end of vaccination of 65 and older is done in Denmark in three days?
- erk__ 5y ago
  What analysis have you read of it? The one released by the danish health authority [0] does seem to support the decision, even if you may not agree in the outcome. [0]: (In Danish) https://www.sst.dk/-/media/Udgivelser/2021/Corona/Vaccination/Notater/Notat-vedr-fortsat-udrulning-af-COVID-19-vaccine-i-Danmark-uden-Vaxzevria140421.ashx https://www.sst.dk/-/media/Udgivelser/2021/Corona/Vaccinatio...
mensetmanusman 5y ago
This is a fascinating example of cultural differences. I wonder if this provides some insight to which societies will be more or less likely to allow driverless vehicles, which suffer conceptually from the same type of trade off.
- Reason077 5y ago
  Nobody would be banning the AstraZeneca vaccine if it were the only one we had. But so long as alternative vaccines are available, there is a "why take the (very small) risk when you don't have to?" argument. Driverless vehicles aren't a valid comparison. They're either safer than human drivers or they're not, something easily proven by monitoring and statistics.
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    DVs will be safer for some but will have edge cases (like all vaccines). This is the well known trolly problem playing out (as discussed elsewhere in this community).
- marto1 5y ago
  And one can probably put London's Sadiq Khan "part and parcel" attitude on the other side of the scale.
londons_explore 5y ago
This decision seems illogical to many commenters here, but I assume the decision was made by professionals with all the data in front of them. Which then raises the question, why did these professionals make a decision so different than the "obvious" opinion here?
- Tenoke 5y ago
  Professionals make wrong decisions all the time, often because the wrong professionals are the ones making them. Are people already forgetting how masks were actively disrecommended by 'professionals' at the start of the pandemic while plenty here and in other places were similarly saying that masks are obviously good?
  - AndrewUnmuted 5y ago
    > Are people already forgetting how masks were actively disrecommended by 'professionals' at the start of the pandemic while plenty here and in other places were similarly saying that masks are obviously good? We are talking about science, I thought. Phrases like "obviously good," really are not in the scientific spirit. Professionals also said that double-masking is even more obviously, obviously good. But that obvious obviousness was, quite obviously, wrong. [0] [0] https://dossier.substack.com/p/the-cdcs-double-mask-mannequin-study https://dossier.substack.com/p/the-cdcs-double-mask-mannequi...
    - rhn_mk1 5y ago
      Nothing in the article states that double masking is not good. It merely states that the study doesn't give any reliable conclusions.
      - SiempreViernes 5y ago
        Are you saying it's obviously good, but you can't tell it helps?
        5y ago
solarkraft 5y ago
Alright! Who will they sell their remaining doses to? The numbers (77% of vaccinations were with the BioNTech vaccine) suggest that they are doing just fine with the much more expensive but less controversial option. Which is cool, but some countries are just looking for raw vaccine for now, no matter which one it is.
jsnell 5y ago
There's a very special kind of arrogance going on in all the comment threads about the Covid vaccine suspensions. These decisions are being made by professionals. They have been trained to do exactly this kind of decision. They have access to the best possible data on both the risks of the vaccine, the risks of Covid in their local context, and the impact these decisions have on the national vaccination schedules. But everyone in the comments is just absolutely sure that the experts are totally incompetent, and a HN reader with access to Wikipedia is better equipped to know what the right decision is. Why?
- thrower123 5y ago
  The evidence has consistently shown that the experts have a track record of making terrible decisions that trend towards covering their own asses, and then coming up with The Science to justify their decisions post-hoc.
- kmlx 5y ago
  > These decisions are being made by professionals. sure, but there are "professionals" on the other side of the debate that say the opposite. thus, discussions will happen. also, these kinds of bans automatically lead to people across the planet not getting the vaccine due to fear. case in point: a hard-hit European country got 1.3 million AZN doses. 800k are unused as no one wants to use them. the population would rather wait for the "good" vaccines :)
- mhb 5y ago
  One obvious reason is that, in all this time, none of these professionals have explained their decision in terms of costs/benefits. So either they are not thinking in those terms or they don't think it is worth sharing the basis for their decisions. Let's see their models.
  - henrikeh 5y ago
    The official statement from the Danish Health Authority is quite thorough. Perhaps not a model, but there is a lot of nuance and they definitely consider the impact of their recommendation : https://www.sst.dk/-/media/Udgivelser/2021/Corona/Vaccination/Notater/Notat-vedr-fortsat-udrulning-af-COVID-19-vaccine-i-Danmark-uden-Vaxzevria140421.ashx https://www.sst.dk/-/media/Udgivelser/2021/Corona/Vaccinatio...
johnchristopher 5y ago
What is the likelihood AstraZenca's supplying problems and the sour relationship between it and the EU influenced the decision for Denmark to permanently cease using this vaccine ?
ThePhysicist 5y ago
The EU will phase out the usage of AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson's vaccines entirely, according to Reuters [1]. Instead they plan to focus on mRNA approaches like Biontech/Pfizer and Moderna. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronovirus-eu-vaccines-idUSKBN2C10MU https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronovirus-eu-vac...
- hef19898 5y ago
  And there I was thinking it couldn't get any worse... I should know better by now. EDIT: It is close to impossible to find accurate delivery schedules for the EU. I hate that, if the answer to "When will how much be delivered?" is a "Enough by Qx" I always assume nobody has the slightest idea how much will be delivered when. Doesn't help to build trust. Statista has some numbers fr Germany by Quarter, no idea how accurate those are: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1199643/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-delivery-date-germany/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1199643/coronavirus-covi... Based on these numbers, kicking out J&J and AZ Germany will loose 27 million doses in Q2 alone. With another 55.8 million in Q3. That's roughly one months worth of deliveries in Q2 and Q3 each. i really hope that decision is thought through and Moderna / BioNTech-Pfizer are up to cover the delta. Only last week I was so sure in June the EU would be through with almost all first shots, now not so much anymore. EDIT 2: They are ending these contracts after expiry, end of 2021. So no short term impact, if true.
kasperni 5y ago
Here is an official statement from the Danish Health Authorities about why AstraZeneca has been removed from the rollout: https://www.sst.dk/en/English/news/2021/Denmark-continues-its-vaccine-rollout-without-the-COVID-19-vaccine-from-AstraZeneca https://www.sst.dk/en/English/news/2021/Denmark-continues-it... The main takeaway is: "In the midst of an epidemic, it has been a difficult decision to continue our vaccination programme without an effective and readily available vaccine against COVID-19. However, we have other vaccines at our disposal, and the epidemic is currently under control. Furthermore, we have come a long way towards vaccinating the older age groups where vaccination has a tremendous potential impact on preventing infection. Age is the main risk factor for becoming severely ill from COVID-19. The upcoming target groups for vaccination are less likely to become severely ill from COVID-19. We must weigh this against the fact that we now have a known risk of severe adverse effects from vaccination with AstraZeneca, even if the risk in absolute terms is slight,"
yummybear 5y ago
1 of 40.000 apparently risk "serious side effects". This is a lot higher than I thought.
- marvin 5y ago
  Scandinavia has arrived at numbers that are many times higher than the international consensus, due to local observations. It seems very unlikely to be a statistical anomaly, although it isn't known yet whether it's due to incomplete observations from abroad or due to local environmental or genetic factors. It would obviously be poor science to ignore the observations; they are well documented at this point.
ReptileMan 5y ago
So more vaccines for the third world. Since this seems to be a regular talking point - if the Europe governments don't want them they could be shipped to poor countries - and since contracts are probably take or pay - this can be done for very low cost.
dlkf 5y ago
In both the comments and in other discussions, I've seen a lot of trolley problem analogies. This is a spectacularly bad analogy. In the trolley problem, the people on the tracks have no choice! With regards to vaccines, we can give people a choice. A competent government would respect people's agency. It would say "Hey folks, the virus kills 1/N and the vaccine kills 1/M, take your pick." When people learn the M is several orders of magnitude greater than N, they will act accordingly.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  People don't have a great history of dealing with probability on a strictly rational basis.
sdeframond 5y ago
Does anyone know how many doses of other, presumably safer, vaccines Danemark has? Perhaps they have the luxury to choose which jab to use, in which case it seems logical to prefer the safer one. TFA mentions that the decision would delay vaccine rollout by 4 weeks. What is the impact of that delay?
- jopsen 5y ago
  Looks like 1-2 deaths per day. But then again, we are vaccinating the most vulnerable populations first. And they won't see much delay. Personally, I think this is going to further increase the risk of additional delays.
cyberpsybin 5y ago
Pfizer and J&J also have the blood clotting issue. At this rate these countries will have no vaccine left to pick from.
- natdempk 5y ago
  Source? I think you are incorrect about Pfizer. Given it is mRNA based, to the best of my knowledge it hasn’t been linked to blood clots in any way.
ed_blackburn 5y ago
Denmark has a low population with a low infection rate. They can afford to wait for alternative vaccines. The same action in other countries could be a disaster.
nickpp 5y ago
This is why you can't trust politicians and governments: they make decisions to cover their asses while robbing you the ability to decide what and how much risk you want to take.
- henrikeh 5y ago
  Except the recommendation is made outside of the government and parliament. And some parties are even arguing for giving people a choice.
unanswered 5y ago
It's funny how "listen to the science" goes right out the fucking window the second the actual scientists say something people don't want to hear. Then it's all "akshually public health officials are just politicians" and "akshually public health officials are bad scientists" and "akshually I know better than the scientists with my PhD in Internets".
- baggy_trough 5y ago
  Science doesn't say what the right risk tradeoffs are for society as a whole. That's a political decision.
bilekas 5y ago
I feel it should be still accessible privately in that case for those who are willing to accept the risk of side effects.

178 points by reddotX 5y ago

Combined with the JnJ halt this postpones Denmark's vaccine program from vaccinating all grown-ups this summer to year's end instead.

ceejayoz 5y ago
The article says it’s a four week pushback and that 70%+ are already getting Pfizer.
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  Why not allocate most of the Pfizer to the young and give the AZ exclusively to the older people?
  - mantap 5y ago
    Theoretically Pfizer has higher efficacy, especially with variants. Giving Pfizer to the old and AZ to the young probably saves more lives than the other way around. If you decide that you don't want to give AZ to the young any more, it doesn't follow that it's then a good idea to give it to the old, especially if you have enough supplies of Pfizer to vaccinate the old.
    - sbuk 5y ago
      All the vaccines have 100% efficacy in preventing ICU admissions so far.
      - throwaway4good 5y ago
        You should be careful comparing numbers from vaccines as they are collected in different environments; there were fewer variants present when first vaccines were on trail.
      - mzs 5y ago
        not quite >Hospitalization data for 129 of the fully vaccinated cases is incomplete, Sutfin said. But for the 117 people for whom hospitalization records are known, 11 were hospitalized. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/04/06/vaccinated-covid-19-contract-virus-coronavirus/7101678002/ https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/04/06/v... "However, since February 1, eight people with vaccine breakthrough have been hospitalized. DOH is investigating two potential vaccine breakthrough cases where the patients died." https://www.doh.wa.gov/Newsroom/Articles/ID/2720/Cases-of-COVID-19-vaccine-breakthrough-confirmed-in-Washington-state https://www.doh.wa.gov/Newsroom/Articles/ID/2720/Cases-of-CO...
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        Hospitalizations are not necessarily ICU admissions. (We should expect some ICU admissions, though. A perfect 100% is not going to hold forever, but that it's taking this long is a really great sign.)
  - yokaze 5y ago
    It all comes down to guessing how to best convince the unconvinced to actually vaccinate. People usually react badly to getting "second-class medicine", if it is mandated. (Elderly people were asking, which vaccine they would get the good-one or the bad-one, literally). I would suggest to simply offer both to everyone and leave people the choice, if they want to risk a one-in-a-million chance of complications (for women, 0 for men AFAIK) or get the other 4 weeks later with the associated risks. And there are people who are a bit iffy about mRNA vaccines.
    - yokaze 5y ago
      Correction: The risk is not 0 for men, only a fair bit lower.
      - caddemon 5y ago
        Also it's more like 1 in 100K for women with AZ. Still very unlikely so I don't understand the need for people to under state it by 10x.
        yokaze 5y ago
        From Science Table Covid-19 Advisory board to Ontario: https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Science-Brief_AstraZeneca_Hospital-Guide_20210402_published.pdf https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/S... Which is the newest I could find on that matter. > VIPIT seems to be rare, occurring in anywhere from 1 in every 125,000 to 1 in 1 million people So, 1 in 100K seems to be the number to be on the safe side. But with rather rare events, it is probably hard to get an exact number there.
        caddemon 5y ago
        If I'm reading the source used by that link correctly though, the 1 million number comes from taking total number vaccinated as the denominator. My understanding was if you are a young woman, the estimate is closer to 1 in 100K. If you aren't it's probably even less likely than 1 in a million.
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    Does Denmark actually have older people to give it to? A lot of EU countries are restricting it to over 60s only, but AFAIK the Denmark vaccine program has gone quicker than most EU ones; there may not be many if any over 60s available.
    - erk__ 5y ago
      This decision delays the vaccine program with around 2 weeks 65+ will be done in the end of week 17 and 50+ in end of week 21. In the danish source below you can on the last pages see the before and after calender with the decision. Source in Danish: https://www.sst.dk/-/media/Udgivelser/2021/Corona/Vaccination/Notater/Notat-vedr-fortsat-udrulning-af-COVID-19-vaccine-i-Danmark-uden-Vaxzevria140421.ashx https://www.sst.dk/-/media/Udgivelser/2021/Corona/Vaccinatio...
  - throwaway4good 5y ago
    They used to give AZ to mostly younger people as the side effects where seen to be stronger than for the PFE. A fear could be that when they start to give the PFE to younger people, they will see the same stuff as with AZ as it triggers the same immune response.
    - caddemon 5y ago
      Pfizer has been distributed to many young people in other countries though and no such issue has popped up. Not saying it's outside the realm of possibility, but I think it's increasingly unlikely. Plus it'd be no surprise to me for the mRNA vaccines to have somewhat different side effect profile than the "traditional" ones.
      - throwaway4good 5y ago
        It also seems that different countries have different criterias for what side effects they tolerate.
tinus_hn 5y ago
Do they not have the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines?
- dataking 5y ago
  Article says they do.
emptyfile 5y ago
[citation needed]
- throwaway4good 5y ago
  https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/professor-efter-vaccine-stop-fra-johnson-johnson-har-vi-kun-pfizer-og-moderna-er-vi https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/professor-efter-vaccine-st... After vaccine stop by Johnson & Johnson: If we only have Pfizer and Moderna we won't be finished until end of 2021
  - abricot 5y ago
    That is a guess made by one person. The article doesn't indicate that they really say down and did the math.

alkonaut 5y ago

Not giving it to 65+ people seems overly cautious. There are zero cases in that group and even just a small delay will mean many dead. This is trading a potential unlikely side effect for a large number of severe Covid cases in high risk groups. Edit: yes I'm aware they have only a dozen or so dead per week but that also translates to hundreds of severe cases, missed elective surgeries, etc. For what would most likely result in zero side effects in the elderly group.

silon42 5y ago
For now, I agree, probably best to keep using it. But if turns out there is need to re-vaccinate yearly (2x again), the decision is not as obvious.
gms7777 5y ago
It's a real world example of a trolley problem. They're choosing to let a large group risk severe disease or death through inaction, rather than pulling the lever and have a small group be at risk due to their actions.
- monster_group 5y ago
  Correct. But to me it seems that pulling the lever to kill a few would be considered more culpable from legal perspective rather than not doing so (and let more people die). IANAL - I am curious to know how law perceives it.
  - busymom0 5y ago
    Don't the COVID vaccine companies enjoy blanket immunity? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-astrazeneca-results-vaccine-liability-idUSKCN24V2EN https://www.reuters.com/article/us-astrazeneca-results-vacci...
- hef19898 5y ago
  Slowely I'm getting the impression that a lot of decisions around AZ are politically driven. In Germany, the new recommendation is now to use Biontech for the second shot after AZ. In that recommendation, it is also stated that there are no studies nor data supporting that. Quite funny, because there is, to my understanding, a study taking place in the Uk for that. It is expected to be done by end of April. Someone has to explain to me why that recommendation couldn't wait until there is data.

kasperni 5y ago

A medical description of one of the danish cases is currently in preprint https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-408726/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-408726/v1

raverbashing 5y ago
Thanks for the link. No treatment with immunoglobulin was given in this case, which might explain why it ended unfavorably.
- marvin 5y ago
  Also, if you're interested, the team of doctors at three Norwegian hospitals have just published their case study of the 5 Norwegian healthcare workers who experienced these rare blood clots. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2104882 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2104882 The authors conclude "Although rare, VITT is a new phenomenon with devastating effects for otherwise healthy young adults and requires a thorough risk–benefit analysis. The findings of our study indicate that VITT may be more frequent than has been found in previous studies in which the safety of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine has been investigated."
  - raverbashing 5y ago
    Thanks, this report is, while describing rare events, sobering

mellosouls 5y ago

This seems like another overreaction that will be interpreted - rightly or wrongly - in the UK in political (Brexit) terms rather than medical or scientific (although they are clearly an important consideration). It's difficult to see how Denmark isn't failing its population with this decision.

0-_-0 5y ago
The sad part is that AstraZeneca chose to sell the vaccine at cost, making no profit. This amount of negative publicity with no good reason will make them (and others) think twice about such a gesture.
- hannob 5y ago
  Like half of the bad publicity for AZ is their own fault. The blood clotting issue is not, but the bad studies and the poor communication totally are. Getting a warning letter from an US agency for publishing outdated data in a press release is quite a feat.
  - 0-_-0 5y ago
    "The company says the agreed cut-off point for data was 17 February, by which time there had been 141 cases and efficacy was 79%. Within 48 hours, AstraZeneca had added more recent data. On a total of 190 cases, there was 76% efficacy (and as always 100% against severe illness and death). It’s not much of a difference." [0] [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/26/how-the-astrazeneca-vaccine-became-a-political-football-and-a-pr-disaster https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/26/how-the-ast...
    - ethanbond 5y ago
      Is this supposed to be some mitigation? A pharma company has a responsibility to publish accurate and up to date data. Full stop.
    - makomk 5y ago

lordnacho 5y ago

Did this happen in the trials? I'm surprised, you'd think the risk - benefit balance would fall in favour of vaccinating.

hannob 5y ago
The trials were too small to detect these rare side effects. There are limits of what you can find in a trial. That's why there's sideeffect monitoring after you put something into realworld use.
MagnumOpus 5y ago
A one-in-a-million effect doesn’t show up in trials that are run on 30,000 people. (Even if it does happen once, it is hard to quantify because these clots happen without the vaccine too, only maybe half/one-third as often.)

okintheory 5y ago

The graphic in this Guardian article [1] suggests that for age 40+ the number of covid-related ICU admissions prevented vs. no. blood clots has a factor 10 gap. Of course, clots might be more severe than ICU admission. But still, it looks to me like stopping for over 40 is a huge mistake. Very disappointing. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/07/under-30s-in-uk-should-be-offered-alternative-covid-vaccine-to-astrazeneca-jab-says-regulator https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/07/under-30s-in...

makomk 5y ago
Yeah, and that's based on the relatively low levels of Covid in the UK recently too... I'm not sure there's anywhere in Europe whose Covid outbreak is currently as under control as the UK's.
sofixa 5y ago
In Scandinavia it seems that the amount of cases with blood clots are higher than in the rest of the world.

Ensorceled 5y ago

I do not understand the math going on here and in multiple countries: a very rare side effect that we can't even clearly attribute to the AZ vaccine, and now the J&J vaccine, VS the clear and present danger of a deadly pandemic: COVID and emerging, more lethal variants.

caddemon 5y ago
For AZ the evidence is pretty strong the clots are a real side effect. It is indeed rare, but it mostly effects young people, who are extremely unlikely to die from COVID. I don't understand discontinuing entirely, but given the vaccine alternatives available I think it makes perfect sense to direct young people elsewhere.

refurb 5y ago

That’s seems like a bit draconian. There is no “safe drug”, “unsafe drug”. It’s a continuum and it’s balanced by the benefit. I find it hard to believe there isn’t a subgroup where the benefit of the vaccine doesn’t outweigh the risk.

da_chicken 5y ago
There certainly is, but there's also other vaccines which don't exhibit this problem. Why should we administer AstraZenica or J&J when Moderna and Pfizer are available and don't have any correlated blood clot issues?
- Tenoke 5y ago
  Because they aren't 'available'. The EU is currently at just 15% vaccinated. Stopping the use of some vaccines means it will take longer and longer to vaccinate people during which time more people will die, not to even speak of the other negative effects of the prolonged pandemic.
- drdec 5y ago
  Because in the during the four week delay in vaccinations many more people will die from Covid-19 than would be affected by side effects from the AZ or JJ vaccines. The truly responsible thing to do is to continue to administer the AZ and JJ vaccines until the other vaccines are available.
- refurb 5y ago
  Supply. I would agree with you otherwise, but if we rely solely on Pfizer and Moderna it’s going to be well into 2022 before the Western countries get vaccinated. I read today Canada was supposed to take deliver of 10M AZ doses, which would vaccinate ~1/7th of their population. That’s not happening now.
- croon 5y ago
  Because people are waiting for vaccines and getting the disease instead? There exists no other vaccines until they are in a person's arm. AZ shots are currently available in X quantity for people. The others are not.

amelius 5y ago

Did they even compute/estimate how many more people are going to die because of this decision, or how many will be saved? Also, since experts have said that the side-effects occur because of an immune-reaction to the adenovirus that is used as the delivery mechanism of the vaccine, what are the chances that the people who have side-effects would die (or at least have the same kind of complications) from covid?

Dah00n 5y ago
Denmark are done giving vaccines to 65 and older on Friday. How many do you think can die in a few days that a vaccine could have saved?
- fooofw 5y ago
  The current official Danish vaccine calendar [1] (updated April 14) estimates that the group of citizens between 74 and 65 years will complete vaccination end of May. [1] https://www.sst.dk/-/media/Udgivelser/2021/Corona/Vaccination/Kalender/Vaccinationskalender-14042021.ashx https://www.sst.dk/-/media/Udgivelser/2021/Corona/Vaccinatio... (in Danish)

amelius 5y ago

Perhaps they should close their roads too, because people die from traffic accidents ...

cameronh90 5y ago
Denmark (along with the other Scandinavian countries and the UK) have almost the lowest traffic-related death rate in the world too. As far as I can tell, Denmark are reporting such a high rate of death from the AZ vaccine relative to the number of doses deployed, that the risk would actually be quite bad compared to driving. However, the absolute numbers are tiny so the uncertainty is enormous. It's quite possible they were just unlucky.
- amelius 5y ago
  The number of traffic-related fatalities in Denmark is around 200 per year, see e.g. [1]. Blood clots appear in 4 per 1M people (UK numbers, [3]) or 10 per 1M (Denmark numbers, [2]). That would mean about 24 to 58 Danish people would get blood clots from their first shot. Denmark had 2447 covid deaths, [4]. If you zoom in on certain age-groups, then perhaps Denmark's decision could still make sense, though. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/573861/number-of-traffic-acciedent-fatalities-in-denmark/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/573861/number-of-traffic... [2] https://www.thelocal.com/20210318/ten-blood-clot-cases-found-in-denmark-after-astrazeneca-vaccination/ https://www.thelocal.com/20210318/ten-blood-clot-cases-found... [3] https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/medicine/covid-19-vaccination-and-blood-clots-by-the-numbers/ https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/medicine/covid-19-vaccinat... [4] https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19 https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19
  - ejolto 5y ago
    [2] states: > ten cases of blood clots have been found in Denmark in people subsequent to taking the AstraZeneca vaccine. and later, > A total of 140,000 people in Denmark have received at least one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. If you extrapolate these numbers you would expect ~410 patients with blood clots from AZ if you gave the vaccine to everyone in Denmark.

maxehmookau 5y ago

What a huge shame. The risk/benefit analysis does not support this decision at all. The risks of blot clotting from a variety of other sources are orders of magnitude higher (looking at you hormonal contraception) but those are risks that large sections of the population gladly accept.

Dah00n 5y ago
How does the risk/benefit not support it when end of vaccination of 65 and older is done in Denmark in three days?
erk__ 5y ago
What analysis have you read of it? The one released by the danish health authority [0] does seem to support the decision, even if you may not agree in the outcome. [0]: (In Danish) https://www.sst.dk/-/media/Udgivelser/2021/Corona/Vaccination/Notater/Notat-vedr-fortsat-udrulning-af-COVID-19-vaccine-i-Danmark-uden-Vaxzevria140421.ashx https://www.sst.dk/-/media/Udgivelser/2021/Corona/Vaccinatio...

mensetmanusman 5y ago

This is a fascinating example of cultural differences. I wonder if this provides some insight to which societies will be more or less likely to allow driverless vehicles, which suffer conceptually from the same type of trade off.

Reason077 5y ago
Nobody would be banning the AstraZeneca vaccine if it were the only one we had. But so long as alternative vaccines are available, there is a "why take the (very small) risk when you don't have to?" argument. Driverless vehicles aren't a valid comparison. They're either safer than human drivers or they're not, something easily proven by monitoring and statistics.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  DVs will be safer for some but will have edge cases (like all vaccines). This is the well known trolly problem playing out (as discussed elsewhere in this community).
marto1 5y ago
And one can probably put London's Sadiq Khan "part and parcel" attitude on the other side of the scale.

londons_explore 5y ago

This decision seems illogical to many commenters here, but I assume the decision was made by professionals with all the data in front of them. Which then raises the question, why did these professionals make a decision so different than the "obvious" opinion here?

Tenoke 5y ago
Professionals make wrong decisions all the time, often because the wrong professionals are the ones making them. Are people already forgetting how masks were actively disrecommended by 'professionals' at the start of the pandemic while plenty here and in other places were similarly saying that masks are obviously good?
- AndrewUnmuted 5y ago
  > Are people already forgetting how masks were actively disrecommended by 'professionals' at the start of the pandemic while plenty here and in other places were similarly saying that masks are obviously good? We are talking about science, I thought. Phrases like "obviously good," really are not in the scientific spirit. Professionals also said that double-masking is even more obviously, obviously good. But that obvious obviousness was, quite obviously, wrong. [0] [0] https://dossier.substack.com/p/the-cdcs-double-mask-mannequin-study https://dossier.substack.com/p/the-cdcs-double-mask-mannequi...
  - rhn_mk1 5y ago
    Nothing in the article states that double masking is not good. It merely states that the study doesn't give any reliable conclusions.
    - SiempreViernes 5y ago
      Are you saying it's obviously good, but you can't tell it helps?
      - 5y ago

solarkraft 5y ago

Alright! Who will they sell their remaining doses to? The numbers (77% of vaccinations were with the BioNTech vaccine) suggest that they are doing just fine with the much more expensive but less controversial option. Which is cool, but some countries are just looking for raw vaccine for now, no matter which one it is.

jsnell 5y ago

There's a very special kind of arrogance going on in all the comment threads about the Covid vaccine suspensions. These decisions are being made by professionals. They have been trained to do exactly this kind of decision. They have access to the best possible data on both the risks of the vaccine, the risks of Covid in their local context, and the impact these decisions have on the national vaccination schedules. But everyone in the comments is just absolutely sure that the experts are totally incompetent, and a HN reader with access to Wikipedia is better equipped to know what the right decision is. Why?

thrower123 5y ago
The evidence has consistently shown that the experts have a track record of making terrible decisions that trend towards covering their own asses, and then coming up with The Science to justify their decisions post-hoc.
kmlx 5y ago
> These decisions are being made by professionals. sure, but there are "professionals" on the other side of the debate that say the opposite. thus, discussions will happen. also, these kinds of bans automatically lead to people across the planet not getting the vaccine due to fear. case in point: a hard-hit European country got 1.3 million AZN doses. 800k are unused as no one wants to use them. the population would rather wait for the "good" vaccines :)
mhb 5y ago
One obvious reason is that, in all this time, none of these professionals have explained their decision in terms of costs/benefits. So either they are not thinking in those terms or they don't think it is worth sharing the basis for their decisions. Let's see their models.
- henrikeh 5y ago
  The official statement from the Danish Health Authority is quite thorough. Perhaps not a model, but there is a lot of nuance and they definitely consider the impact of their recommendation : https://www.sst.dk/-/media/Udgivelser/2021/Corona/Vaccination/Notater/Notat-vedr-fortsat-udrulning-af-COVID-19-vaccine-i-Danmark-uden-Vaxzevria140421.ashx https://www.sst.dk/-/media/Udgivelser/2021/Corona/Vaccinatio...

johnchristopher 5y ago

What is the likelihood AstraZenca's supplying problems and the sour relationship between it and the EU influenced the decision for Denmark to permanently cease using this vaccine ?

ThePhysicist 5y ago

The EU will phase out the usage of AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson's vaccines entirely, according to Reuters [1]. Instead they plan to focus on mRNA approaches like Biontech/Pfizer and Moderna. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronovirus-eu-vaccines-idUSKBN2C10MU https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronovirus-eu-vac...

hef19898 5y ago
And there I was thinking it couldn't get any worse... I should know better by now. EDIT: It is close to impossible to find accurate delivery schedules for the EU. I hate that, if the answer to "When will how much be delivered?" is a "Enough by Qx" I always assume nobody has the slightest idea how much will be delivered when. Doesn't help to build trust. Statista has some numbers fr Germany by Quarter, no idea how accurate those are: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1199643/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-delivery-date-germany/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1199643/coronavirus-covi... Based on these numbers, kicking out J&J and AZ Germany will loose 27 million doses in Q2 alone. With another 55.8 million in Q3. That's roughly one months worth of deliveries in Q2 and Q3 each. i really hope that decision is thought through and Moderna / BioNTech-Pfizer are up to cover the delta. Only last week I was so sure in June the EU would be through with almost all first shots, now not so much anymore. EDIT 2: They are ending these contracts after expiry, end of 2021. So no short term impact, if true.

kasperni 5y ago

Here is an official statement from the Danish Health Authorities about why AstraZeneca has been removed from the rollout: https://www.sst.dk/en/English/news/2021/Denmark-continues-its-vaccine-rollout-without-the-COVID-19-vaccine-from-AstraZeneca https://www.sst.dk/en/English/news/2021/Denmark-continues-it... The main takeaway is: "In the midst of an epidemic, it has been a difficult decision to continue our vaccination programme without an effective and readily available vaccine against COVID-19. However, we have other vaccines at our disposal, and the epidemic is currently under control. Furthermore, we have come a long way towards vaccinating the older age groups where vaccination has a tremendous potential impact on preventing infection. Age is the main risk factor for becoming severely ill from COVID-19. The upcoming target groups for vaccination are less likely to become severely ill from COVID-19. We must weigh this against the fact that we now have a known risk of severe adverse effects from vaccination with AstraZeneca, even if the risk in absolute terms is slight,"

yummybear 5y ago

1 of 40.000 apparently risk "serious side effects". This is a lot higher than I thought.

marvin 5y ago
Scandinavia has arrived at numbers that are many times higher than the international consensus, due to local observations. It seems very unlikely to be a statistical anomaly, although it isn't known yet whether it's due to incomplete observations from abroad or due to local environmental or genetic factors. It would obviously be poor science to ignore the observations; they are well documented at this point.

ReptileMan 5y ago

So more vaccines for the third world. Since this seems to be a regular talking point - if the Europe governments don't want them they could be shipped to poor countries - and since contracts are probably take or pay - this can be done for very low cost.

dlkf 5y ago

In both the comments and in other discussions, I've seen a lot of trolley problem analogies. This is a spectacularly bad analogy. In the trolley problem, the people on the tracks have no choice! With regards to vaccines, we can give people a choice. A competent government would respect people's agency. It would say "Hey folks, the virus kills 1/N and the vaccine kills 1/M, take your pick." When people learn the M is several orders of magnitude greater than N, they will act accordingly.

throwawayboise 5y ago
People don't have a great history of dealing with probability on a strictly rational basis.

sdeframond 5y ago

Does anyone know how many doses of other, presumably safer, vaccines Danemark has? Perhaps they have the luxury to choose which jab to use, in which case it seems logical to prefer the safer one. TFA mentions that the decision would delay vaccine rollout by 4 weeks. What is the impact of that delay?

jopsen 5y ago
Looks like 1-2 deaths per day. But then again, we are vaccinating the most vulnerable populations first. And they won't see much delay. Personally, I think this is going to further increase the risk of additional delays.

cyberpsybin 5y ago

Pfizer and J&J also have the blood clotting issue. At this rate these countries will have no vaccine left to pick from.

natdempk 5y ago
Source? I think you are incorrect about Pfizer. Given it is mRNA based, to the best of my knowledge it hasn’t been linked to blood clots in any way.

ed_blackburn 5y ago

Denmark has a low population with a low infection rate. They can afford to wait for alternative vaccines. The same action in other countries could be a disaster.

nickpp 5y ago

This is why you can't trust politicians and governments: they make decisions to cover their asses while robbing you the ability to decide what and how much risk you want to take.

henrikeh 5y ago
Except the recommendation is made outside of the government and parliament. And some parties are even arguing for giving people a choice.

unanswered 5y ago

It's funny how "listen to the science" goes right out the fucking window the second the actual scientists say something people don't want to hear. Then it's all "akshually public health officials are just politicians" and "akshually public health officials are bad scientists" and "akshually I know better than the scientists with my PhD in Internets".

baggy_trough 5y ago
Science doesn't say what the right risk tradeoffs are for society as a whole. That's a political decision.

bilekas 5y ago

I feel it should be still accessible privately in that case for those who are willing to accept the risk of side effects.