from Hacker News

Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

by reddotX on 4/14/21, 10:58 AM with 334 comments

• by alkonaut on 4/14/21, 11:31 AM

  Not giving it to 65+ people seems overly cautious. There are zero cases in that group and even just a small delay will mean many dead. This is trading a potential unlikely side effect for a large number of severe Covid cases in high risk groups.

  Edit: yes I'm aware they have only a dozen or so dead per week but that also translates to hundreds of severe cases, missed elective surgeries, etc. For what would most likely result in zero side effects in the elderly group.

• by londons_explore on 4/14/21, 12:07 PM

  This decision seems illogical to many commenters here, but I assume the decision was made by professionals with all the data in front of them.

  Which then raises the question, why did these professionals make a decision so different than the "obvious" opinion here?

• by mellosouls on 4/14/21, 11:32 AM

  This seems like another overreaction that will be interpreted - rightly or wrongly - in the UK in political (Brexit) terms rather than medical or scientific (although they are clearly an important consideration).

  It's difficult to see how Denmark isn't failing its population with this decision.

• by yummybear on 4/14/21, 12:33 PM

  1 of 40.000 apparently risk "serious side effects". This is a lot higher than I thought.

• by kasperni on 4/14/21, 11:32 AM

  A medical description of one of the danish cases is currently in preprint https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-408726/v1

• by kasperni on 4/14/21, 12:26 PM

  Here is an official statement from the Danish Health Authorities about why AstraZeneca has been removed from the rollout:

  https://www.sst.dk/en/English/news/2021/Denmark-continues-it...

  The main takeaway is:

  "In the midst of an epidemic, it has been a difficult decision to continue our vaccination programme without an effective and readily available vaccine against COVID-19. However, we have other vaccines at our disposal, and the epidemic is currently under control. Furthermore, we have come a long way towards vaccinating the older age groups where vaccination has a tremendous potential impact on preventing infection. Age is the main risk factor for becoming severely ill from COVID-19. The upcoming target groups for vaccination are less likely to become severely ill from COVID-19. We must weigh this against the fact that we now have a known risk of severe adverse effects from vaccination with AstraZeneca, even if the risk in absolute terms is slight,"

• by unanswered on 4/14/21, 4:32 PM

  It's funny how "listen to the science" goes right out the fucking window the second the actual scientists say something people don't want to hear. Then it's all "akshually public health officials are just politicians" and "akshually public health officials are bad scientists" and "akshually I know better than the scientists with my PhD in Internets".

• by amelius on 4/14/21, 11:57 AM

  Perhaps they should close their roads too, because people die from traffic accidents ...

• by maxehmookau on 4/14/21, 12:04 PM

  What a huge shame. The risk/benefit analysis does not support this decision at all.

  The risks of blot clotting from a variety of other sources are orders of magnitude higher (looking at you hormonal contraception) but those are risks that large sections of the population gladly accept.

• by dlkf on 4/14/21, 12:57 PM

  In both the comments and in other discussions, I've seen a lot of trolley problem analogies. This is a spectacularly bad analogy.

  In the trolley problem, the people on the tracks have no choice! With regards to vaccines, we can give people a choice. A competent government would respect people's agency. It would say "Hey folks, the virus kills 1/N and the vaccine kills 1/M, take your pick."

  When people learn the M is several orders of magnitude greater than N, they will act accordingly.

• by amelius on 4/14/21, 11:55 AM

  Did they even compute/estimate how many more people are going to die because of this decision, or how many will be saved?

  Also, since experts have said that the side-effects occur because of an immune-reaction to the adenovirus that is used as the delivery mechanism of the vaccine, what are the chances that the people who have side-effects would die (or at least have the same kind of complications) from covid?

• by bilekas on 4/14/21, 4:38 PM

  I feel it should be still accessible privately in that case for those who are willing to accept the risk of side effects.

• by solarkraft on 4/14/21, 12:07 PM

  Alright! Who will they sell their remaining doses to?

  The numbers (77% of vaccinations were with the BioNTech vaccine) suggest that they are doing just fine with the much more expensive but less controversial option.

  Which is cool, but some countries are just looking for raw vaccine for now, no matter which one it is.

• by ThePhysicist on 4/14/21, 12:22 PM

  The EU will phase out the usage of AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson's vaccines entirely, according to Reuters [1]. Instead they plan to focus on mRNA approaches like Biontech/Pfizer and Moderna.

  [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronovirus-eu-vac...

• by mensetmanusman on 4/14/21, 12:06 PM

  This is a fascinating example of cultural differences.

  I wonder if this provides some insight to which societies will be more or less likely to allow driverless vehicles, which suffer conceptually from the same type of trade off.

• by nickpp on 4/14/21, 4:25 PM

  This is why you can't trust politicians and governments: they make decisions to cover their asses while robbing you the ability to decide what and how much risk you want to take.

• by refurb on 4/14/21, 11:50 AM

  That’s seems like a bit draconian.

  There is no “safe drug”, “unsafe drug”. It’s a continuum and it’s balanced by the benefit.

  I find it hard to believe there isn’t a subgroup where the benefit of the vaccine doesn’t outweigh the risk.

• by johnchristopher on 4/14/21, 12:14 PM

  What is the likelihood AstraZenca's supplying problems and the sour relationship between it and the EU influenced the decision for Denmark to permanently cease using this vaccine ?

• by Ensorceled on 4/14/21, 11:42 AM

  I do not understand the math going on here and in multiple countries: a very rare side effect that we can't even clearly attribute to the AZ vaccine, and now the J&J vaccine, VS the clear and present danger of a deadly pandemic: COVID and emerging, more lethal variants.

• by sdeframond on 4/14/21, 12:59 PM

  Does anyone know how many doses of other, presumably safer, vaccines Danemark has?

  Perhaps they have the luxury to choose which jab to use, in which case it seems logical to prefer the safer one. TFA mentions that the decision would delay vaccine rollout by 4 weeks.

  What is the impact of that delay?

• by ReptileMan on 4/14/21, 12:49 PM

  So more vaccines for the third world. Since this seems to be a regular talking point - if the Europe governments don't want them they could be shipped to poor countries - and since contracts are probably take or pay - this can be done for very low cost.

• by ed_blackburn on 4/14/21, 1:49 PM

  Denmark has a low population with a low infection rate. They can afford to wait for alternative vaccines. The same action in other countries could be a disaster.

• by lordnacho on 4/14/21, 11:37 AM

  Did this happen in the trials? I'm surprised, you'd think the risk - benefit balance would fall in favour of vaccinating.

• by throwaway4good on 4/14/21, 11:29 AM

  Combined with the JnJ halt this postpones Denmark's vaccine program from vaccinating all grown-ups this summer to year's end instead.

• by jsnell on 4/14/21, 12:13 PM

  There's a very special kind of arrogance going on in all the comment threads about the Covid vaccine suspensions.

  These decisions are being made by professionals. They have been trained to do exactly this kind of decision. They have access to the best possible data on both the risks of the vaccine, the risks of Covid in their local context, and the impact these decisions have on the national vaccination schedules.

  But everyone in the comments is just absolutely sure that the experts are totally incompetent, and a HN reader with access to Wikipedia is better equipped to know what the right decision is. Why?

• by okintheory on 4/14/21, 11:42 AM

  The graphic in this Guardian article [1] suggests that for age 40+ the number of covid-related ICU admissions prevented vs. no. blood clots has a factor 10 gap. Of course, clots might be more severe than ICU admission. But still, it looks to me like stopping for over 40 is a huge mistake. Very disappointing.

  [1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/07/under-30s-in...

• by cyberpsybin on 4/14/21, 1:15 PM

  Pfizer and J&J also have the blood clotting issue. At this rate these countries will have no vaccine left to pick from.