3 ms·

I made a website recently to try and do what I think you're talking about. http://whatoneinamillionmeans.com http://whatoneinamillionmeans.com The idea is to

I made a website recently to try and do what I think you're talking about. http://whatoneinamillionmeans.com http://whatoneinamillionmeans.com The idea is to compare the risk of death from the AZ vaccine from blood clots (1 in a million so far) with the risks we take all the time without worrying. For there J+J vaccine, it's also a 1 in a million risk, but just of getting the clots, not dying. The point is to show the fallacy of comparing the risk of the vaccine with a perceived current zero risk - you are not at zero risk ever, there's a base-risk we as society and individuals have decided we are OK with, because without it we can't even get out of bed in the morning, let alone get into a car or do anything else interesting, and the risk from these vaccines is a lot lower than that.

alderz 6y ago
I am not sure why you got downvoted. The website makes the point well.
eloff 6y ago
I fully agree, and made this point many times to my vaccine skeptical parents. Thankfully they've come around and got the vaccine since.
jrochkind1 6y ago
The most important comparison is the risk of getting severe covid and/or dying from it if unvaccinated. It's tricky cause it depends on what you do (you get to do more once you are vaccinated), as well as the ever-changing rate of infection in the community where you are (which will change as more people get vaccinated among other things). But in general, your risk of having severe complications from covid if unvaccinated is far more than your risk of complications from the vaccine. And on the population level, we can say if say 1 million people get the vaccine, X will have blood clot complications (about 1)... if 1 million people go two months without being vaccinated, how many will get covid and have severe complications? (more than X). So if using the J&J gets a million people vaccinated two months earlier, it's a win. Of course, ALL of this is an embaressment of riches when the USA has access to large quantities of three effective and safe vaccines, when much of the planet still has zero.
- jonplackett 6y ago
  I agree that's an important part - BUT there's more to this all than the risk to ourselves as individuals. For older people, getting the vaccine is a no brainer. The risk of covid is high, they can't see their grand kids etc, so they're lining up to get vaccinated. For young people, the risk from Covid is low, but we need everyone to get vaccinated anyway because that's the only way to stop it spreading, infecting more vulnerable people, maybe even mutating enough to escape the vaccine. So what this is about is asking people who might not be at that much risk from covid, to get a vaccine that they're also not that much at risk from (but might worry about with all the negative headlines), in order to save all the other people and the economy and country / world as a whole.
  - caddemon 6y ago
    We have 2 other vaccines that do not present this risk. It seems pretty likely the issue affects mostly younger women, so I don't see the problem with encouraging that demographic to get a different vaccine if they have reservations about J&J. To me that seems like the more practical approach as far as safety of all involved AND actually convincing people on the fence to get vaccinated. Let's stop with the "all vaccines are the same" bullshit.
wang_li 6y ago
> For there J+J vaccine, it's also a 1 in a million risk, but just of getting the clots, not dying. Your denominator could be wrong when you factor in the attributes of the individual considering the shot. Are the blood clots appearing entirely randomly or are they happening more frequently in an identifiable sub-group of vaccine recipients? In the case of the J+J vaccine all the blood clots happened in women 18-48 years old. https://www.insider.com/blood-clots-after-jj-covid-vaccine-occurred-within-2-weeks-2021-4 https://www.insider.com/blood-clots-after-jj-covid-vaccine-o...
- jonplackett 6y ago
  It's a good point - I don't know enough about the J+J one to comment on that, this was based on the AZ vaccine. Do you know if anyone has died from the J+J one? Because that's what I am comparing with for the AZ one, so it's actually in that sense less risky that AZ anyway.
  - caddemon 6y ago
    The link above states 3 women so far have died from J&J and 7 more remain hospitalized. If you do demographic-specific division and compare that to the likelihood that same demographic would die from COVID, it seems unclear to me that young women would come out better getting the J&J vaccine. Both things are very unlikely to happen, but ultimately it's easy to get a Pfizer or Moderna appointment these days (at least in my area) so I don't see the point in trying to pressure people into getting J&J if they're concerned about that specific vaccine. Pfizer/Moderna are probably more effective anyway.
    - jonplackett 6y ago
      I’m here in the UK and we have limited supply of anything but he AZ vaccine which we make here, so it’s a slightly different story. We can’t choose what jab we get. You just get an appointment and get whatever you get when you arrive.
mikem170 6y ago
> For there J+J vaccine, it's also a 1 in a million risk, but just of getting the clots, not dying. Are you sure about this? I thought the J&J 1 in a million number was deaths, from cerebral venous sinus thrombosis blood clots? Isn't that why they paused this vaccine? There are many other kinds of blood clots (deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, etc). During J&J FDA trials they found a 50% increase in blood clots of any type in the vaccinated group [0], which they did not consider statistically significant at the time (20k people, 15 versus 10 blood clots in the unvacinated group). That might be an increased 1 in 4k risk of a blood clot from the vaccine, with the fatal ones being 1 in a million so far. [0] https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/13/health/johnson-vaccine-blood-clots-cdc-fda/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/13/health/johnson-vaccine-blood-...

alderz 6y ago

I am not sure why you got downvoted. The website makes the point well.

eloff 6y ago

I fully agree, and made this point many times to my vaccine skeptical parents. Thankfully they've come around and got the vaccine since.

jrochkind1 6y ago

The most important comparison is the risk of getting severe covid and/or dying from it if unvaccinated. It's tricky cause it depends on what you do (you get to do more once you are vaccinated), as well as the ever-changing rate of infection in the community where you are (which will change as more people get vaccinated among other things). But in general, your risk of having severe complications from covid if unvaccinated is far more than your risk of complications from the vaccine. And on the population level, we can say if say 1 million people get the vaccine, X will have blood clot complications (about 1)... if 1 million people go two months without being vaccinated, how many will get covid and have severe complications? (more than X). So if using the J&J gets a million people vaccinated two months earlier, it's a win. Of course, ALL of this is an embaressment of riches when the USA has access to large quantities of three effective and safe vaccines, when much of the planet still has zero.

jonplackett 6y ago
I agree that's an important part - BUT there's more to this all than the risk to ourselves as individuals. For older people, getting the vaccine is a no brainer. The risk of covid is high, they can't see their grand kids etc, so they're lining up to get vaccinated. For young people, the risk from Covid is low, but we need everyone to get vaccinated anyway because that's the only way to stop it spreading, infecting more vulnerable people, maybe even mutating enough to escape the vaccine. So what this is about is asking people who might not be at that much risk from covid, to get a vaccine that they're also not that much at risk from (but might worry about with all the negative headlines), in order to save all the other people and the economy and country / world as a whole.
- caddemon 6y ago
  We have 2 other vaccines that do not present this risk. It seems pretty likely the issue affects mostly younger women, so I don't see the problem with encouraging that demographic to get a different vaccine if they have reservations about J&J. To me that seems like the more practical approach as far as safety of all involved AND actually convincing people on the fence to get vaccinated. Let's stop with the "all vaccines are the same" bullshit.

wang_li 6y ago

> For there J+J vaccine, it's also a 1 in a million risk, but just of getting the clots, not dying. Your denominator could be wrong when you factor in the attributes of the individual considering the shot. Are the blood clots appearing entirely randomly or are they happening more frequently in an identifiable sub-group of vaccine recipients? In the case of the J+J vaccine all the blood clots happened in women 18-48 years old. https://www.insider.com/blood-clots-after-jj-covid-vaccine-occurred-within-2-weeks-2021-4 https://www.insider.com/blood-clots-after-jj-covid-vaccine-o...

jonplackett 6y ago
It's a good point - I don't know enough about the J+J one to comment on that, this was based on the AZ vaccine. Do you know if anyone has died from the J+J one? Because that's what I am comparing with for the AZ one, so it's actually in that sense less risky that AZ anyway.
- caddemon 6y ago
  The link above states 3 women so far have died from J&J and 7 more remain hospitalized. If you do demographic-specific division and compare that to the likelihood that same demographic would die from COVID, it seems unclear to me that young women would come out better getting the J&J vaccine. Both things are very unlikely to happen, but ultimately it's easy to get a Pfizer or Moderna appointment these days (at least in my area) so I don't see the point in trying to pressure people into getting J&J if they're concerned about that specific vaccine. Pfizer/Moderna are probably more effective anyway.
  - jonplackett 6y ago
    I’m here in the UK and we have limited supply of anything but he AZ vaccine which we make here, so it’s a slightly different story. We can’t choose what jab we get. You just get an appointment and get whatever you get when you arrive.

mikem170 6y ago

> For there J+J vaccine, it's also a 1 in a million risk, but just of getting the clots, not dying. Are you sure about this? I thought the J&J 1 in a million number was deaths, from cerebral venous sinus thrombosis blood clots? Isn't that why they paused this vaccine? There are many other kinds of blood clots (deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, etc). During J&J FDA trials they found a 50% increase in blood clots of any type in the vaccinated group [0], which they did not consider statistically significant at the time (20k people, 15 versus 10 blood clots in the unvacinated group). That might be an increased 1 in 4k risk of a blood clot from the vaccine, with the fatal ones being 1 in a million so far. [0] https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/13/health/johnson-vaccine-blood-clots-cdc-fda/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/13/health/johnson-vaccine-blood-...