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Monday, March 15, 2021 9:50:26 PM
AstraZeneca Concerns Throw Europe’s Vaccine Rollout Into Deeper Disarray
"COVID-19 Vaccine Fact Vs. Fiction: An Expert Weighs in on Common Fears"
Police patrolling the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan. Alessandro Grassani for The New York Times
By Jason Horowitz
March 15, 2021Updated 9:23 p.m. ET
Germany, France, Italy and Spain became the latest countries to suspend use of the vaccine even as a third wave of the pandemic threatens the continent.
ROME — As a third wave of the pandemic crashes over Europe, questions about the safety of one of the continent’s most commonly available vaccines led Germany, France, Italy and Spain to temporarily halt its use on Monday. The suspensions created further chaos in inoculation rollouts even as new coronavirus variants continue to spread.
The decisions followed reports that a handful of people who had received the vaccine, made by AstraZeneca, had developed fatal brain hemorrhages and blood clots.
The company has strongly defended its vaccine, saying that there is “no evidence” of increased risk of blood clots or hemorrhages among the more than 17 million people who have received the shot in the European Union and the United Kingdom.
“The safety of all is our first priority,” AstraZeneca said in a statement Monday. “We are working with national health authorities and European officials and look forward to their assessment later this week.”
The timing of the pause in inoculations by some of Europe’s largest countries — which followed a flurry of similar actions by Denmark, Norway and several others — could not have been worse.
Europe’s vaccine rollouts already lag far behind those in Britain and the United States, and there is dawning realization that much of the continent is suffering a third wave of infections. Leading immunologists fretted on Monday that the decision by several of Europe’s leading nations to suspend the use of AstraZeneca would make vaccination efforts even harder by emboldening vaccine skeptics in countries where they are particularly entrenched.
The European Medicines Agency and the World Health Organization warned against an exodus from vaccines that would undermine rollout efforts at a pivotal moment.
“We do not want people to panic,” the W.H.O.’s chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, said at a news conference, adding that no link had been found between the clotting disorders reported in some countries and COVID-19 shots. A W.H.O. advisory committee plans to meet on Tuesday to discuss the vaccine.
The European Medicines Agency, or E.M.A., said Monday that it would continue to investigate a possible connection between the AstraZeneca shots and blood clots or bleeding in the brain. But the agency said the numbers of such problems reported in vaccinated people did not seem higher than those usually seen in the general population. Germany, for instance, reported seven cases of a “rare cerebral vein thrombosis” out of 1.6 million people who received the vaccine there.
[...]
“While its investigation is ongoing, E.M.A. currently remains of the view that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in preventing COVID-19, with its associated risk of hospitalization and death, outweigh the risks of side effects,” the agency said.
[...]
Throughout Europe, officials and immunologists worried that the actions would cost vital time in the race against fast-spreading variants.
“This is a catastrophe,” said Heike Werner, the minister for health in the eastern German state of Thuringia, who was already grappling with learning that her region would receive just 9,600 of 31,200 doses of AstraZeneca because of a reported shortage of supplies. “Many people are desperately waiting for this vaccine.”
Roberto Burioni, a leading Italian virologist, voiced his worries on Twitter that people would now avoid the vaccine.
“I understand if you will decide not to get vaccinated, scared by inexplicable decisions,” he said. “I understand and I am sorry because you will expose yourself to a serious risk to avoid a negligible one.”
Dr. Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health, University of Southampton said “the decisions by France, Germany and other countries look baffling.” He said that the delay in inoculations, and “the potential for increased vaccine hesitancy,” belied any new or conclusive data.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/15/world/europe/astra-zeneca-vaccine-europe.html
"COVID-19 Vaccine Fact Vs. Fiction: An Expert Weighs in on Common Fears"
Police patrolling the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan. Alessandro Grassani for The New York Times
By Jason Horowitz
March 15, 2021Updated 9:23 p.m. ET
Germany, France, Italy and Spain became the latest countries to suspend use of the vaccine even as a third wave of the pandemic threatens the continent.
ROME — As a third wave of the pandemic crashes over Europe, questions about the safety of one of the continent’s most commonly available vaccines led Germany, France, Italy and Spain to temporarily halt its use on Monday. The suspensions created further chaos in inoculation rollouts even as new coronavirus variants continue to spread.
The decisions followed reports that a handful of people who had received the vaccine, made by AstraZeneca, had developed fatal brain hemorrhages and blood clots.
The company has strongly defended its vaccine, saying that there is “no evidence” of increased risk of blood clots or hemorrhages among the more than 17 million people who have received the shot in the European Union and the United Kingdom.
“The safety of all is our first priority,” AstraZeneca said in a statement Monday. “We are working with national health authorities and European officials and look forward to their assessment later this week.”
The timing of the pause in inoculations by some of Europe’s largest countries — which followed a flurry of similar actions by Denmark, Norway and several others — could not have been worse.
Europe’s vaccine rollouts already lag far behind those in Britain and the United States, and there is dawning realization that much of the continent is suffering a third wave of infections. Leading immunologists fretted on Monday that the decision by several of Europe’s leading nations to suspend the use of AstraZeneca would make vaccination efforts even harder by emboldening vaccine skeptics in countries where they are particularly entrenched.
The European Medicines Agency and the World Health Organization warned against an exodus from vaccines that would undermine rollout efforts at a pivotal moment.
“We do not want people to panic,” the W.H.O.’s chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, said at a news conference, adding that no link had been found between the clotting disorders reported in some countries and COVID-19 shots. A W.H.O. advisory committee plans to meet on Tuesday to discuss the vaccine.
The European Medicines Agency, or E.M.A., said Monday that it would continue to investigate a possible connection between the AstraZeneca shots and blood clots or bleeding in the brain. But the agency said the numbers of such problems reported in vaccinated people did not seem higher than those usually seen in the general population. Germany, for instance, reported seven cases of a “rare cerebral vein thrombosis” out of 1.6 million people who received the vaccine there.
[...]
“While its investigation is ongoing, E.M.A. currently remains of the view that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in preventing COVID-19, with its associated risk of hospitalization and death, outweigh the risks of side effects,” the agency said.
[...]
Throughout Europe, officials and immunologists worried that the actions would cost vital time in the race against fast-spreading variants.
“This is a catastrophe,” said Heike Werner, the minister for health in the eastern German state of Thuringia, who was already grappling with learning that her region would receive just 9,600 of 31,200 doses of AstraZeneca because of a reported shortage of supplies. “Many people are desperately waiting for this vaccine.”
Roberto Burioni, a leading Italian virologist, voiced his worries on Twitter that people would now avoid the vaccine.
“I understand if you will decide not to get vaccinated, scared by inexplicable decisions,” he said. “I understand and I am sorry because you will expose yourself to a serious risk to avoid a negligible one.”
Dr. Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health, University of Southampton said “the decisions by France, Germany and other countries look baffling.” He said that the delay in inoculations, and “the potential for increased vaccine hesitancy,” belied any new or conclusive data.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/15/world/europe/astra-zeneca-vaccine-europe.html
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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