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Comment by afavour | Hacker News Reader

> there are other options

Not with sufficient supply there isn’t. That’s the issue almost every country is facing, and AZ production plants can’t just flip a switch and start making Moderna vaccines instead.

No matter what if you stop using the AZ you’re going to have a sharp drop in the number of vaccinations you’re able to do. That would almost certainly result in more deaths than the side effect of the vaccine.

> Any hint, even the slightest, that complications may be ignored, could result in untold masses refusing vaccination out of fear.

Only if people (and the media especially) hype up a very small danger to be more than it is. The larger danger is and always was COVID itself, especially with the new strains spreading.

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The US will have >600 million doses from Moderna and Pfizer delivered by July, and currently even has 30 (soon 60) million AZ doses in storage that won't get approval before these 600 million other doses are delivered.

There's certainly countries where this will be a difficult ethical consideration, but it's far from clear-cut everywhere with the data and timelines that are currently available.

AstraZeneca isn't even approved in the US yet so the delay will most likely have no effect there.

I'm sorry, but anti-vaxxer nutjobs do that hype all on their own. And people are already sensibly worried about rushed testing, and approval processes.

(It is sensible to be worried, and to keep a sharp eye.)

Now there appears to be a complication with one vaccine. No hype is required, for people to become enraged if there is no investigation. Most jurisdictions have said 'pause for a few days, until we look into this'.

This is very, very sensible. Logical. Calm and cool, as a reaction.

Let me put this another way.

By your response, you're suggestion that we should not have even bothered with clinical trials? Just inject anything we thought might work, right away, just in case?

Because, if you're advocating against pausing, for something that would get a second look in a clinical trial... ?

> By your response, you're suggestion that we should not have even bothered with clinical trials? Just inject anything we thought might work, right away, just in case?

That's very clearly not my suggestion. You're being absurd. You're talking as if the AZ vaccine had no clinical trial. It did. It's been proven safe for the vast, vast majority of the population.

At no point did I say that this shouldn't be investigated. It should be. But there is no need to pause the rollout of the vaccine while that happens. A reminder: 40 cases in 17 million. Very few of those 40 cases have been fatal. "Pause for a few days" is very generous. How many days? We all know investigations like this can go on for weeks. Months, even. All the while the much more dangerous thread, COVID, is allowed to spread further.

The mouse brain derived Japanese Encephalitis caused death, often 2 years after vaccination. It too went through clinical trials, and seemed perfectly safe at first. It was pulled as a result.

Yet, those clinical trials were not rushed, nor the government approvals, nor did it have the sort of pressure you are applying right now.

Further, you have no idea how wide spread, or severe this may be. You cite numbers from the media, yet reject pausing, without even knowing the precise number of people unable to get vaccinated as a result, or if more cases of clotting may appear as time passes.

You have no real data.

Let's get some.

FYI, we are not far apart ideologically here. I get what you are saying, but imagine this..

2 weeks pass, and it is shown that the problem is quite severe. The vaccine is tossed.

Next the anti-vaxxers, the media, start spewing words of distrust. Helpfully, the media shows a grandmother crying, for days, over and over, about her dead son.

How many may refuse vaccination, and die then?

I believe it makes more sense to demonstrate caution, due to the sad politics of humanity.

>> there are other options

> Not with sufficient supply there isn’t.

Depends. If AZ is not removed entirely from use but instead only from the most affected group (women under 50), then this can be achieved by shuffling around which group gets which vaccine. So the same number of people will be vaccinated, and vaccination deaths are avoided.

> Only if people (and the media especially) hype up a very small danger to be more than it is.

At least here in Germany, it was mainly the healthcare workers who specifically rejected AZ. Police, fire brigade, kindergarten teachers, etc. were eager to get any vaccine. So simply blaming it on the media is maybe short-sighted, there are other dynamics at play here.

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