State of the world: For perspective the US is 15x the size of Chile and 5x the size of the U.K. Also, get ready for more shots. We will not have this under control until we get a sizable global population vaccinated. My guess is 3 years of shots considering the frequency of variants.
Not looking good for AstraZeneca... EU drug regulator finds link between AstraZeneca vaccine and blood clots https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...azeneca-vaccine-and-blood-clots-idUSKBN2BU242 Europe’s drug regulator on Wednesday found a possible link between AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine and rare blood clotting issues in adults who had received the shot and said it had taken into consideration all available evidence. “One plausible explanation for the combination of blood clots and low blood platelets is an immune response, leading to a condition similar to one seen sometimes in patients treated with heparin,” the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said. The findings come as a major hurdle in the global fight against the pandemic and a shift in the stance of the regulator, which had last week backed the vaccine and said there was no increased risk of blood clots in general from the shot. It is also a blow to AstraZeneca, which was a frontrunner in the race for making an effective vaccine against COVID-19 ever since it began working with the University of Oxford. The EMA’s safety committee, which was assessing the vaccine, has requested for more studies and changes to the current ones to get more information.
I dunno. It is not lookin good from a marketing and vaccine acceptance point of view forAZ with all the bad press. On the other hand, they are making progress in the regulatory area, at least in Europe. The EU's "FDA" has approved it or at least decided that the benefits outweigh the risks, and Canada and other non-european countries will follow- if they do not have many vaccine choices in their country. The Americans will probably make em jump through some more hoops, because we can. The Canadians cannot. As discussed, they are hurting in the American market but they can probably survive and get acceptance in the rest of the world by using the argument that "it is approved in Europe and Canada, etc. etc.) I imagine it is a good vaccine that has adverse reactions in some people. That is true of most prescription meds and peanut butter.
AstraZeneca is in a real shitty spot right now. They did the development and manufacturing for no profit and now they have to defend this vaccine for brand reputation only. I mentioned a while ago now that we would most likely do a lot of paper shuffling and delays with the AZ shot because it was pretty apparent there is a very rare but serious side effect with it and that is exactly what we did. The AZ shot uses the same vectors based technology as the J&J shot - that is it uses the adeno (spellcheck) form of the common cold virus as a transport for genetic material of the Covid spike. Somewhere in there, there is a serious problem when the genetic material meets with certain patients. I heard the Germans had a good treatment plan when the side effect occurs but still not ideal. Our counterparts in Europe relied too heavily on cost efficiencies by not spreading out the risk and now they are dealing with problems. Lots of talk about keeping mRNA shots manufactured in Europe and not allowing them to be exported which will create a major diplomatic problem. All in all, the lesson here is diversify.
Different ways to look at it. As I have said many times, there appears to be risks but lots of prescription pharmaceuiticals have risks and are used every day. The EU agency described the clots as “very rare” side effects. Dr Sabine Straus, chair of EMA’s Safety Committee, said the best data is coming from Germany where there is one report of the rare clots for every 100,000 doses given, although she noted far fewer reports in the U.K. Still, that’s less than the clot risk that healthy women face from birth control pills, noted another expert, Dr. Peter Arlett.
Yes. I totally agree. The risk of the vaccine doesn’t exceed the risk in common medications. However, it’s a major problem because from a public relations standpoint where a sizable percentage of people are already vaccine hesitant. The point is that the Euros need to get going and they are not making the progress they should. There’s a wide range of fallout from not getting sufficient levels of the population vaccinated ranging from economic to social stability to global relations etc. Getting going and achieving a high level of vaccinated is critical to success. Countries that achieve high vaccine levels faster than other will have a distinct advantage that will last for years.