Malibuflyer wrote:
By now everyone agrees that it is a side effect
Im pretty sure no-one has said this, the closest I have heard is “there is no evidence to prove it, but that it cant be ruled out” – but thats because it is practically impossible to prove a negative in something like this… hell, this morning someone mentioned while discussing “vaccine side effects” that there had been a report filed (which will apparently stand for ever as a possible side effect in the data) which said “I got pregnant after vaccination”… 
Regards, SD..
The EMA said yesterday there is no evidence to suggest a link but does not rule out the fact that there might be one. Of course you can’t rule it out…. proving a negative is close to impossible.
The EMA wording as reported will make millions not touch AZ with a 20ft (7m) bargepole.
Cobalt – but as I pointed out this data appears to be population wide, whereas the vaccine appears to have only been given to the over somethings.
I havent seen the data for this age group, but I would have thought our European friends would have published what data they had relied on. As far as I can see they havent.
From the EMA website (there is a lot more than the quote below).
Quote
The Committee’s experts looked in extreme detail at records of DIC and CVST reported from Member States, 9 of which resulted in death. Most of these occurred in people under 55 and the majority were women. Because these events are rare, and COVID-19 itself often causes blood clotting disorders in patients, it is difficult to estimate a background rate for these events in people who have not had the vaccine. However, based on pre-COVID figures it was calculated that less than 1 reported case of DIC might have been expected by 16 March among people under 50 within 14 days of receiving the vaccine, whereas 5 cases had been reported. Similarly, on average 1.35 cases of CVST might have been expected among this age group whereas by the same cut-off date there had been 12. A similar imbalance was not visible in the older population given the vaccine.
If I understand correctly, a plausible explanation for the elevated rate of thromboses is Covid itself, so it is hard to pin down their cause.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
Cobalt – but as I pointed out this data appears to be population wide, whereas the vaccine appears to have only been given to the over somethings.
Fair point, and as I said there are a lot of corrections one should make. Turns out, see EMA quote above, once applied these corrections make it look worse for the vaccine.
But that is the problem – there certainly was something looking like a signal well above the noise floor. Many countries went in to precautionary “analysis paralysis” mode, when even the assumption that there was a link would likely lead to the same conclusion – keep calm and carry on.
They did the equivalent of a precautionary engine shut-down when seeing an oil pressure fluctuation, while right in the middle of the north Atlantic with the nearest coast 3 hours away.
Cobalt wrote:
They did the equivalent of a precautionary engine shut-down when seeing an oil pressure fluctuation, while right in the middle of the north Atlantic with the nearest coast 3 hours away.
In a single-engine aircraft ;-)
:-D; nope, a twin that is running a Pfizer engine and an AstraZeneca one; neither of which are currently firing on all cylinders, so to speak.
This is interesting
The previously unreported analysis, which was conducted by PHE and the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium, revealed that Greece was the largest source of imported infections between June and September, making up 21% of new cases, compared with 16% for Croatia and 14% for Spain.
The reason given is that no quarantine was required for Greece until Nov 2020.
I reckon it will be much stricter this time round, but it may work because the vaccination certificates will not penetrate far enough down the age range to reach the “heavy partying” demographic until later in the year. That will leave the options, mentioned by Greece, of a CV19 test (one outbound, one inbound = hassle and cost) or an antibody test (positive for only a few % of the population).
There is a huge pressure to restart tourism.
Indeed there is a huge pressure. A very delicate balance here on the Balearics. We are doing quite well here on the infection front, but there is a lot of economic pressure to start opening up for Easter, while at the same time we see a 3rd wave forming in the countries where the tourists would need to come from. Except for the UK! Peter, could you somehow make sure there would be some sort of a delay for vaccination of say below 25 year old youngsters until after summer? It would be great to have the many nice UK visitors here minus the balcony jumping crowd
could you somehow make sure there would be some sort of a delay for vaccination of say below 25 year old youngsters until after summer?
I am sure that a lot of people are looking at exactly that, but nobody is going to spell it out in those words 
I was talking to neighbours recently. A young family of 4. The CV19 test option will probably cost them an extra £500-800 on their holiday. This is major money for most young people.
And mainland Europe is probably 3-4 months behind the UK on the vacc programme.
Italy has already lost how many € BN via the shutdown of skiing? Switzerland I am not sure about; it is open for locals for sure but many others of their big spenders would be quarantined on return.
