Saying it's not effective for older people, temporarily banning it, saying it's not for younger people etc. At this point a lot of average people are skeptical not because they are anti-vaxx but because of the mixed messages from the governments.
Delay 2 weeks to double check some reaction numbers vs rush and possibly cause thousands of deaths?
I think it's good they were willing to put on brakes if not sure, and good they resumed when science told them it was fine.
Except that's not the order that things went. They put on the brakes after 'science' told them it was fine to continue, and then resumed based on no new (public) scientific information.
Even if their intentions are good, the timing and communication around the whole things looks and feels chaotic and arbitrary and does not make people feel confident that they have any idea what they are doing.
Nobody said that; they said that the trial showed no statistically useful evidence that it was effective for older people (which was true, at least for the original trial). Given limited supplies of AZ it arguably made more sense to use the more plentiful Pfizer vaccine for groups it was known to work on, and use the rarer AZ vaccine for groups it was known to work on.
This was informed by the limited supply; if AZ had been the main vaccine available decisions were different. As it is, restricting AZ to under 65s didn't meaningfully slow rollouts in countries that did it.