Depends a bit on what sort of clot your friend has experienced.
The clotting events that they're specifically looking for are quite unusual - they relate to antibody production that leads to platelet activation (most commonly associated with heparins). "just" a DVT or similar is not the same thing (and much more common in normal life)
I know someone has to know one of the 30 that have had a clot, just seems very surprising that’s its me.
For balance, I don't know anyone that's had a blood clot after the jab - hope that helps!
Going back a few weeks when France and other countires had put the AZ vaccine on hold I pointed out the disparity between the reported number of cases of clotting in the UK when millions of doses had been used and in the rest of Europe where as many cases had been reported from a tiny fraction of the doses. Two bad cases in staff in one hospital makes the "less dangerous than the contraceptive pill" argument ring false and leads me to question the X/100 000 number above.
There have been enough cases in Europe for authorities to identify the age groups most vulnerable to clotting and exclude them from AZ use.
Why would someone like Madame accept the AZ vaccine? She's 57 and is convinced she had Covid last March with classic but mild symptoms. Better to wait a few weeks for an alternative vaccine if offered AZ it seems to her. As a male who's a bit older I'd still accept AZ.
My sincere condolences to you, Countzero. And thank you for reporting a painful event with sober dignity.
As I’ve reported back in the thread my mums mate is one of the 30 who’s had platelet issues, back in the hospital yesterday for the weekend as her platelet count was back down to below 20000/ml so more iv platelet infusions along with plasma/vit k steroids and other stuff beginning with A-something or other and they were doing a brain scan earlier as she’s been getting severe headaches, not heard from mum as to how that went but fingers crossed she’s ok, I’ll find out later
As an aside my ms consultant called me to see how I was getting on and he’s decided to bring me in for a scan on Monday along with blood work as I’ve also been suffering with hellish headaches on one side of my head that make my right eye twitch along with severe joint aches and a constant feeling of intense burning then freezing in my lower legs, it’s all a bit complicated as I also have secondary progressive multiple sclerosis which can raise such issues as aches and weird sensations but never debilitating headaches nor the draining lethargy as I’ve had over the last 6weeks since receiving the az vaccine.
Let’s hope it’s just my spms playing up
I'm assuming that the thinking is that the owner will manage distancing in the locations on the right, but there's less control on the one on the left? Though theatres and cinemas may disprove my theory.
I said a while back that international travel, festivals and other ticketed events are the only places it makes any practical sense. No chance of it applying to anything like pubs or shops.
Somafunk, hope the check ups don’t show up anything new for you. Crossing everything.
If as a nation we've reached "herd immunity" levels then you don't need vaccine passports for Covid-19 any more than you need it for any other virus.
And if you haven't, then a vaccine passport isn't much use - I might have been vaccinated but that doesn't mean I'm not contagious and can't be infected if there are enough unvaccinated people in the same tightly packed nightclub.
Seems more likely that vaccine passports are what you might do if you were worried about new variants coming and wreaking havoc with your vaccination program and needed some publicity stunt to distract people while you tried to figure out a solution.
Seems more likely that vaccine passports are what you might do if you were worried about new variants coming and wreaking havoc with your vaccination program and needed some publicity stunt to distract people while you tried to figure out a solution.
Except there isn't a solution other than to tweak your vaccine
No chance of it applying to anything like pubs or shops.
If I have a choice between a pub that insists on everyone either having a vaccination or testing negative, and one that doesn't, I'm going in the first one.
while i respect your personal choice flaperon, im strongly against it being imposed on the whole population
but im pretty sure that the roll out of a vaccine passport which clearly and openly favours the same demographic that 'everyone' has been working together for... will bring about significant divisions across the country
it was clear very early on that the vaccinations would stall significantly at the point where the 2nd dosers begin to queue patiently, however the line that has been drawn is somewhere in the 45-50 region, the same that folk who have arguably suffered the most significant consequences of societal closedown, physical lockdowns and long term isolation - how are they going to take it?
really i suspect that it will be an incredible success just like track and trace.
arguably
Is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
I think if Corbyn and IDS agree on something, then it's probably a bad idea.
I'm against any kind of vaccine passport except at country borders and then only when everybody has had the opportunity to get vaccinated. It's discrimination simple as and breaks rule number two where I live. It would currently discriminate against the younger members of the population who have already paid a heavy economic and social price for limiting deaths in another age group.
it was clear very early on that the vaccinations would stall significantly at the point where the 2nd dosers begin to queue patiently, however the line that has been drawn is somewhere in the 45-50 region
"Vaccine passport" is a misnomer. I actually said "vaccination or recent test". I wouldn't support any policy where it's "vaccination or no entry".
Certain media outlets are calling it a vaccine passport, but from What I can tell its more of a covid passport. Ie you meet one or more of the following
-vaccinated
-recent negative test
-covid antibodies from recent ish infection
I wonder how recent the negative test will need to be, will I need to get tested every other day until I get vaccinated if I want to go to somewhere that requires a covid passport?
If I have a choice between a pub that insists on everyone either having a vaccination or testing negative, and one that doesn’t, I’m going in the first one.
I bet you the second pub will do better than the first financially if it was rolled out on the 17th May.
I bet you the second pub will do better than the first financially if it was rolled out on the 17th May.
Why's that?
Why’s that?
Perhaps because the second pub people still take infection precautions rather than blithely assuming that their vaccine protects then from SA or Brazilian or whatever variants.
Certain media outlets are calling it a vaccine passport, but from What I can tell its more of a covid passport. Ie you meet one or more of the following
-vaccinated
-recent negative test
-covid antibodies from recent ish infection
As ever, a catchy name, media catering for the hard of thinking and everyone wanting to either batter this crappy government or desperate for normality to return at any cost, has blurred the facts.
It does put a lot more pressure on venue staff to enforce it though. Getting that vocal minority of the population to fo along with it will be a problem.
My missus is 46, bright and aligned with STW on most things pandemic related.
She is feeling concerned about the risks for U50 women with AZ & clots. Can someone point me to a sensible article on the subject that is readable to a non-science geek?
CZ I am so very sorry for your immense loss. I did some reading on possible mechanisms and there is little knowledge of the cause or the treatment really. Loss of platelets has been noted with other vaccines and heparin but this is academic. Just thinking of you and how awful.
My missus is 46, bright and aligned with STW on most things pandemic related.
She is feeling concerned about the risks for U50 women with AZ & clots. Can someone point me to a sensible article on the subject that is readable to a non-science geek?
I don't align with the general STW view but in terms of vaccination is the risk from the virus greater than the risk from the vaccine? The risk of death from clots related to the vaccine appears to be less than 1 in a million. https://www.qcovid.org/Calculation gives a useful indication of the risk covid poses to an individual.
Interesting that according to that calculator, having a previous fracture of wrist, hip or spine makes quite a difference. I wonder why that is? Perhaps it's a surrogate for bone density and nutrition? I fractured my spine a few years back, but that was due to a rather hard wallop from a Ford Focus - I'm not convinced that on an individual level that affects my risk greatly. Interesting that overall it shows up as a factor despite obvious confounds, but I guess it's much easier to measure than "is your bone density a bit crap?" or "how healthy is your diet?". Or maybe there's another mechanism altogether!?
Gribs - I agree with what youbsay, but she would like to look at some real evidence/analysis as she is worried. Her current thoughts are to still have it, but doesn't just want to dismiss the issue.
I was concerned about this when I got my appt, and I'm not a middle aged woman. I agonized about waiting, I'm low risk (low exposure mainly) to see what else had to come out. The more recent news does make me wonder further if there should be a direction towards the other vaccines for this particular demographic.
That said..... the risk is still low (turn the stats around and 30/18.1M with clots means 18,099,970/18,100,00 without)
From members of the Lancets Covid-19 Commission Taskforce on Public Health
Put simply, the game has changed, and a successful global rollout of current vaccines by itself is no longer a guarantee of victory.
Thanks @piemonster, very interesting. The scale of the ramp up is tremendous - 5 billion for all vaccines pre-COVID to 9.5 billion COVID vaccines alone. No wonder the ramp up is hard.
Put simply, the game has changed, and a successful global rollout of current vaccines by itself is no longer a guarantee of victory.
This has always been the case. We need to suppress the virus while we roll out the vaccines. Chile might be learning this the hard way.
This has always been the case. We need to suppress the virus while we roll out the vaccines. Chile might be learning this the hard way.
No it hasn't and it isn't - that's a failure to understand what that article says.
We're easing lockdown, if you hadn't noticed everyone is expecting a normal summer and Q3/4 2021.
Hospitalisations and mortality are the key indicators for population morbidity. SARS-CoV-2 infections will be with us an endemic seasonal infection, hopefully at not too serious levels. But this is still really just the first wave. Everyone needs some immunological protection from the potential morbidity from this first wave. I think the available vaccines provide that. Efficacy against symptoms is relatively poor for the SA variant for Ox/AZ and if introduced to the U.K. would likely give another wave of cases but a much smaller wave of hospitalisations.
But prior protection would limit the healthcare burden, as per influenza. Getting to that prior protection is the important thing.
The current debate is what size epidemic is likely as we unlock based on a much younger population of susceptibles. I think other countries like India have already shown us that, with much lower (but not zero) deaths in such a population.
On the other hand, the B.1.351 variant seems to reduce the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine against mild to moderate illness. We do not yet have clear evidence on whether it also reduces effectiveness against severe disease.
if you hadn’t noticed everyone is expecting a normal summer and Q3/4 2021
It's misplaced optimism, starting at the very top.
Not sure everyone is expecting a normal summer and Q3 and Q4 ?
I would say everyone is hoping for a normal summer and Q3 and Q4.
The Kent variant started in mid September, and had the UK locked down by mid December. 3 months is all it took. The first wave in Q1 2020 was about 2 months.
I hope that Government/PHE/Etc successfully monitor all the new variants and take early action to avoid another 3 month national lockdown.
I also hope to be able to make the most of the spring and summer.
Not sure everyone is expecting a normal summer and Q3 and Q4 ?
I am, im getting married in a few months and the idea of having more than 30 people would be nice.
Sounds like the EMA will be releasing an updated statement on the clotting issue today.
Not sure what the Guardian consider as "clear evidence". OK the SA trial is probably only 10% of the necessary trial size for the typical number of events (powered for a 50% efficacy), but that has already been ruled out by the trial. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2102214
Moderate COVID disease >21 days after prime and < 14 days after boost was 5/913 (placebo) 1/916 (vaccine) making an efficacy of 80.1% (CI -77.4 to 99.6%). OK, underpowered, but an 80% effect is not zero. This is from Table S6 in the appendix and is of course exploratory. But it's not "no evidence" and effects that big tend not to disappear as trials get bigger.
It's not all doom and gloom.
A next wave is predicted in July/August, either from lockdown measures being released or from a variant or both.
What seems in doubt is the severity of the next wave, with worst case scenario deemed to be as bad as the one we've just come out of with max NHS pressure, although with vaccines I thought the promise of this was now unlikely?
Whatever, this seems to be the way of life for the next few years.
who's predicting that, any sources to read?
Think Sage have talked about it, was being discussed on Good Morning Britain this morning when MrsMC was watching it
I'd read similar too - I think it came out of SPI-M, the modelling subgroup of SAGE.
with worst case scenario deemed to be as bad as the one we’ve just come out of with max NHS pressure, although with vaccines I thought the promise of this was now unlikely?
I guess they have to factor in the possibility of a new variant which evades vaccines completely. There is already some suggestion that the Brazil variant is slightly better at this, hence the reluctance to allow a holiday free-for-all this summer.
Having said that, the Brazil variant is already here, to some extent. Last time I looked there were 57 confirmed cases in the UK. The questions are whether it can outcompete the Kent variant in the unvaccinated, and cause illness in the vaccinated population.
What is clear is that our tracing efforts aren't fit for purpose. That was always going to be the exit strategy - vaccination plus comprehensive test and trace. The current idea of chucking millions of lateral flow tests out into the general population and seeing what sticks is an acknowledgment that tracing isn't really capable of moving fast to contain outbreaks.
Reports are published
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/lshtm-interim-roadmap-assessment-prior-to-step-2-31-march-2021
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/imperial-college-london-evaluating-englands-roadmap-out-of-lockdown-30-march-2021
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/university-of-warwick-road-map-scenarios-and-sensitivity-29-march-2021
Some consistency among them. I was most interested in the likelihood of an epidemic that would match the magnitude we have seen this winter. The consensus is that any epidemic will be lower than what we have seen, based around the susceptibility to serious COVID. The projections do NOT factor in emergent new strains such as B1.351. Happy to answer any question. I reviewed all three.
EDIT here is the SPI-M summary
These documents are put into the public domain faster than people think!
I would say everyone is hoping for a normal summer and Q3 and Q4.
Many of the people I get to speak to are expecting not hoping. I hope that their optimism is not misplaced.