The COVID-2019 Thread

[Slick]

What do they mean by "Hotel areas "? do they mean hotel grounds (still an improvement over being locked up in a room) , Or do they mean the area that the hotel is located, such as Krabi, or Kho Chang, etc. for instance. I would not mind spending a week or so in Kho Chang .
But the hotel Grounds would not be so bad , if we can find a hotel with nice big grounds and perhaps a nice restaurant.

In a nutshell it means a vaccinated person still has to do 7 days and 2 covid tests (pre flight and end of quarantine) in a facility or resort.

What’s being proposed looks like they MIGHT have a pilot program where the whole resort (not just the room) is the facility.

And even if they do roll out this pilot program, it’ll take weeks/months to get steady. Highly likely you’ll be looking at shit food/green pools until the wrinkles get lined out, and by then they might do away with 7 days all together.

Short term: bank on 7 days. I wouldn’t even wast the headspace on a “resort” or whatever. 7 days isn’t long. Fly into Bangkok, do the 7 days in the room, get out. Get rooms with a balcony and clothes washer and it’s quick.

Welcome to Alternative State Quarantine Hotel - ASQ Booking Hotel

I got a throwaway covid policy through these people for 6500 baht and it worked.

Mister Prakan : Compare and Save on Insurance in Thailand

[harrybarracuda]

Almost 90% of Israelis 16 and older vaccinated or recovered from COVID-19

Almost 90% of Israelis 16 and older vaccinated or recovered from COVID-19 | All Israel News

[harrybarracuda]

There's no proof the Oxford vaccine causes blood clots. So why are people worried?

Stories about people getting blood clots soon after taking the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine have become a source of anxiety among European leaders. After a report on a death and three hospitalisations in Norway, which found serious blood clotting in adults who had received the vaccine, Ireland has temporarily suspended the jab. Some anxiety about a new vaccine is understandable, and any suspected reactions should be investigated. But in the current circumstances we need to think slow as well as fast, and resist drawing causal links between events where none may exist.

As Ireland’s deputy chief medical officer, Ronan Glynn, has stressed, there is no proof that this vaccine causes blood clots. It’s a common human tendency to attribute a causal effect between different events, even when there isn’t one present: we wash the car and the next day a bird relieves itself all over the bonnet. Typical. Or, more seriously, someone is diagnosed with autism after receiving the MMR vaccine, so people assume a causal connection – even when there isn’t one. And now, people get blood clots after having a vaccine, leading to concern over whether the vaccine is what caused the blood clots.

Call it luck, chance or fate – it’s difficult to incorporate this into our thinking. So when the European Medicines Agency says there have been 30 “thromboembolic events” after around 5m vaccinations, the crucial question to ask is: how many would be expected anyway, in the normal run of things?

We can try a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation. Deep vein thromboses (DVTs) happen to around one person per 1,000 each year, and probably more in the older population being vaccinated. Working on the basis of these figures, out of 5 million people getting vaccinated, we would expect significantly more than 5,000 DVTs a year, or at least 100 every week. So it is not at all surprising that there have been 30 reports.

It would be so much easier if we had a group of people exactly like those being vaccinated but who didn’t get jabbed. This would tell us how many serious events we could expect to happen to people that were the result of sheer bad luck. Fortunately, we do have such a group. In the trials that led to the vaccines being approved in the UK, volunteers were randomly allocated to receive either the active vaccine or a dummy injection. Everyone then reported any harms they experienced, but crucially nobody knew if they had received the real stuff or an inert injection. By comparing the numbers of reports from the two groups, we can see how many “reactions” were really owing to the active ingredients, and how many were linked to the vaccination process, or would have happened anyway.

Some kind of adverse events were reported by 38% of those receiving the real vaccine but, rather remarkably, 28% of those who received the dummy also reported a side-effect. This shows that the vaccination process itself causes about two-thirds of all the reported harm. Of more than 24,000 participants, fewer than 1% reported a serious adverse event, and of these 168 people, slightly more had received the dummy than the active vaccine. So there was no evidence of increased risk from taking the AstraZeneca vaccine. The Pfizer trials had similar results, with more mild or moderate adverse events in the vaccine group but almost identical numbers of serious events.

Trials are short and comparatively small, and tend to include healthy people, so we need to collect real-world data as the vaccines are rolled out. In the UK, adverse reactions are reported using the “yellow card” system, which dates back to the days when doctors filled in yellow cards to report side-effects. Up to 28 February, around 54,000 yellow cards have been reported for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, from around 10 million vaccinations given (the Pfizer vaccine has a slightly lower rate). So for both vaccines, the overall reporting rate is around three to six reports per 1,000 jabs. That means a far greater number of side-effects are reported in the trials than through the yellow card system (of course, one factor in this underreporting may be the yellow card website, which appears designed for medical professionals rather than patients experiencing side-effects).

The vast majority of the side-effects reported through the yellow card system and in randomised trials are reports of direct reactions to the jab, such as a sore arm, or subsequent general flu-like symptoms of headache, tiredness, fever and so on, which subside in a few days. The most serious problem is anaphylactic reactions, and the advice is not to inject anyone with a previous history of allergic reactions to either a prior dose of the vaccine or its ingredients.

So far, these vaccines have shown themselves to be extraordinarily safe. In fact, it’s perhaps surprising that we haven’t heard more stories of adverse effects. There could well be some extremely rare event that is triggered by Covid-19 vaccines, but there is no sign of this yet. We can just hope that this message gets through to those who are still hesitant because of the misinformation that has been spread about the supposed harm of vaccines, and the unhelpful comments made by some European politicians.

Will we ever be able to resist the urge to find causal relationships between different events? One way of doing this would be promoting the scientific method and ensuring everyone understands this basic principle. Testing a hypothesis helps us see which hunches or assumptions are correct and which aren’t. In this way, randomised trials have proved the effectiveness of some Covid treatments and saved vast numbers of lives, while also showing us that some overblown claims about treatments for Covid-19, such as hydroxychloroquine and convalescent plasma, were incorrect.

But I don’t think we can ever fully rationalise ourselves out of the basic and often creative urge to find patterns even where none exist. Perhaps we can just hope for some basic humility before claiming we know why something has happened.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...a-causal-links

[Klondyke]

About time Thailand approved private hospitals getting their own vaccines to sell privately. Just because the government wants to sit around squashing it’s nuts shouldn’t mean everyone has to wait on their incompetence and corruption.

They’ve been asleep at the wheel long enough. Time to gtfo the way.

It's quite obvious they are stalling because someone wants money.

So, did they get the money already? (when in EU even the strong Yermans, Falangs have stopped with AstraZeneca...)

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and other cabinet ministers were inoculated against Covid-19 at Government House on Tuesday morning.

Their vaccinations had been postponed last Friday after several European countries had suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine on reports of adverse reactions in a small number of patients.

"It has been verified that there is no bad reaction from the AstraZeneca vaccine.

PM, ministers get Covid-19 shots

[harrybarracuda]

MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippine capital Manila will widen a ban on minors leaving their residences to include youths of up to 18 years old for two weeks starting on Wednesday, tightening coronavirus restrictions in a bid to tackle a new surge of infections.

Only those aged 18-65 years old will be allowed out of their homes, the Metro Manila Development Authority said in a statement, citing an agreement among mayors.

The Philippines late last year started easing one of the world’s longest and strictest lockdowns though a rule that anyone under 15 must stay indoors in Manila remained in place.

The Southeast Asian country has seen a surge in COVID-19 cases this month, recording the largest daily increase since mid-August on Monday with 5,404 new infections.

Manila orders anyone below 18 to stay indoors as virus cases surge | Reuters

[taxexile]

re. the euro vaccine shitshow.

the EU commission invested a large wedge of the money they forced out of the 27 "equal partners" for vaccination programs into pfizer in germany and sanofi in france, those also being the two most powerful eu states now that the uk has left the party.

the pfizer shot sells for 26 euros a pop, and the sanofi one would probably have cost the same had the french been successful, which they werent. as far as i know the sanofi vaccine has yet to make an appearance at the great euro covid shitshow.

so lots of profit for the german company, tax for the eu and dividends for the shareholders


and then out of nowhere plucky little underdog blighty comes up astra zenica, the anglo swedish company headuartered in cambridge. their vaccine sells to the world at cost for 2.60 euros a pop and bang goes pfizer's sales projections and profits.

so commercially, the az vaccine is a direct competitor to the eu, and in particular germany, which more or less runs the eu, and therefor it is in their interests to undermine it, badmouth it and ban it with absolutely no evidence to back up their claims, in fact evidence from pfizer shows just as many blood clot incidents as az.

[harrybarracuda]

re. the euro vaccine shitshow.

the EU commission invested a large wedge of the money they forced out of the 27 "equal partners" for vaccination programs into pfizer in germany and sanofi in france, those also being the two most powerful eu states now that the uk has left the party.

the pfizer shot sells for 26 euros a pop, and the sanofi one would probably have cost the same had the french been successful, which they werent. as far as i know the sanofi vaccine has yet to make an appearance at the great euro covid shitshow.

so lots of profit for the german company, tax for the eu and dividends for the shareholders


and then out of nowhere plucky little underdog blighty comes up astra zenica, the anglo swedish company headuartered in cambridge. their vaccine sells to the world at cost for 2.60 euros a pop and bang goes pfizer's sales projections and profits.

so commercially, the az vaccine is a direct competitor to the eu, and in particular germany, which more or less runs the eu, and therefor it is in their interests to undermine it, badmouth it and ban it with absolutely no evidence to back up their claims, in fact evidence from pfizer shows just as many blood clot incidents as az.

Sanofi COVID-19 vaccine will not be ready this year, CEO says

Maia Anderson - Monday, February 15th, 2021

Sanofi COVID-19 vaccine will not be ready this year, CEO says.

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Almost 90% of Israelis 16 and older vaccinated or recovered from COVID-19


Almost 90% of Israelis 16 and older vaccinated or recovered from COVID-19 | All Israel News

You know, here in the US ,I keep hearing about the Israelis. They have 8 million people , here in the Us we vaccinate that many every three days. I herd the same about security in airports. "Israel has good security, why cant our airports me as secure? They only have one main airport, we have what 100? and we are not an apartheid country. something that we used to be very much against when it came to South Africa.
Israel? well,, no so much.
They probably bought all that vaccine with the billions we send them every year.

[Buckaroo Banzai]

There's no proof the Oxford vaccine causes blood clots. So why are people worried?

Stories about people getting blood clots soon after taking the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine have become a source of anxiety among European leaders. After a report on a death and three hospitalisations in Norway, which found serious blood clotting in adults who had received the vaccine, Ireland has temporarily suspended the jab. Some anxiety about a new vaccine is understandable, and any suspected reactions should be investigated. But in the current circumstances we need to think slow as well as fast, and resist drawing causal links between events where none may exist.

As Ireland’s deputy chief medical officer, Ronan Glynn, has stressed, there is no proof that this vaccine causes blood clots. It’s a common human tendency to attribute a causal effect between different events, even when there isn’t one present: we wash the car and the next day a bird relieves itself all over the bonnet. Typical. Or, more seriously, someone is diagnosed with autism after receiving the MMR vaccine, so people assume a causal connection – even when there isn’t one. And now, people get blood clots after having a vaccine, leading to concern over whether the vaccine is what caused the blood clots.

Call it luck, chance or fate – it’s difficult to incorporate this into our thinking. So when the European Medicines Agency says there have been 30 “thromboembolic events” after around 5m vaccinations, the crucial question to ask is: how many would be expected anyway, in the normal run of things?

We can try a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation. Deep vein thromboses (DVTs) happen to around one person per 1,000 each year, and probably more in the older population being vaccinated. Working on the basis of these figures, out of 5 million people getting vaccinated, we would expect significantly more than 5,000 DVTs a year, or at least 100 every week. So it is not at all surprising that there have been 30 reports.

It would be so much easier if we had a group of people exactly like those being vaccinated but who didn’t get jabbed. This would tell us how many serious events we could expect to happen to people that were the result of sheer bad luck. Fortunately, we do have such a group. In the trials that led to the vaccines being approved in the UK, volunteers were randomly allocated to receive either the active vaccine or a dummy injection. Everyone then reported any harms they experienced, but crucially nobody knew if they had received the real stuff or an inert injection. By comparing the numbers of reports from the two groups, we can see how many “reactions” were really owing to the active ingredients, and how many were linked to the vaccination process, or would have happened anyway.

Some kind of adverse events were reported by 38% of those receiving the real vaccine but, rather remarkably, 28% of those who received the dummy also reported a side-effect. This shows that the vaccination process itself causes about two-thirds of all the reported harm. Of more than 24,000 participants, fewer than 1% reported a serious adverse event, and of these 168 people, slightly more had received the dummy than the active vaccine. So there was no evidence of increased risk from taking the AstraZeneca vaccine. The Pfizer trials had similar results, with more mild or moderate adverse events in the vaccine group but almost identical numbers of serious events.

Trials are short and comparatively small, and tend to include healthy people, so we need to collect real-world data as the vaccines are rolled out. In the UK, adverse reactions are reported using the “yellow card” system, which dates back to the days when doctors filled in yellow cards to report side-effects. Up to 28 February, around 54,000 yellow cards have been reported for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, from around 10 million vaccinations given (the Pfizer vaccine has a slightly lower rate). So for both vaccines, the overall reporting rate is around three to six reports per 1,000 jabs. That means a far greater number of side-effects are reported in the trials than through the yellow card system (of course, one factor in this underreporting may be the yellow card website, which appears designed for medical professionals rather than patients experiencing side-effects).

The vast majority of the side-effects reported through the yellow card system and in randomised trials are reports of direct reactions to the jab, such as a sore arm, or subsequent general flu-like symptoms of headache, tiredness, fever and so on, which subside in a few days. The most serious problem is anaphylactic reactions, and the advice is not to inject anyone with a previous history of allergic reactions to either a prior dose of the vaccine or its ingredients.

So far, these vaccines have shown themselves to be extraordinarily safe. In fact, it’s perhaps surprising that we haven’t heard more stories of adverse effects. There could well be some extremely rare event that is triggered by Covid-19 vaccines, but there is no sign of this yet. We can just hope that this message gets through to those who are still hesitant because of the misinformation that has been spread about the supposed harm of vaccines, and the unhelpful comments made by some European politicians.

Will we ever be able to resist the urge to find causal relationships between different events? One way of doing this would be promoting the scientific method and ensuring everyone understands this basic principle. Testing a hypothesis helps us see which hunches or assumptions are correct and which aren’t. In this way, randomised trials have proved the effectiveness of some Covid treatments and saved vast numbers of lives, while also showing us that some overblown claims about treatments for Covid-19, such as hydroxychloroquine and convalescent plasma, were incorrect.

But I don’t think we can ever fully rationalise ourselves out of the basic and often creative urge to find patterns even where none exist. Perhaps we can just hope for some basic humility before claiming we know why something has happened.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...a-causal-links

After I took the vaccine I was farting like crazy. I think they should suspend , and investigate at least until April 2nd when I am ready for my second shot.
On an unrelated subject the Fermented Cabbage (Kim Chi) soupe I had after getting my vaccine was Arroy Mak Mak .

[Troy]

re. the euro vaccine shitshow.

the EU commission invested a large wedge of the money they forced out of the 27 "equal partners" for vaccination programs into pfizer in germany and sanofi in france, those also being the two most powerful eu states now that the uk has left the party.

the pfizer shot sells for 26 euros a pop, and the sanofi one would probably have cost the same had the french been successful, which they werent. as far as i know the sanofi vaccine has yet to make an appearance at the great euro covid shitshow.

so lots of profit for the german company, tax for the eu and dividends for the shareholders


and then out of nowhere plucky little underdog blighty comes up astra zenica, the anglo swedish company headuartered in cambridge. their vaccine sells to the world at cost for 2.60 euros a pop and bang goes pfizer's sales projections and profits.

so commercially, the az vaccine is a direct competitor to the eu, and in particular germany, which more or less runs the eu, and therefor it is in their interests to undermine it, badmouth it and ban it with absolutely no evidence to back up their claims, in fact evidence from pfizer shows just as many blood clot incidents as az.

Yeah, yeah, waffle, waffle and silly games. Sweden has also paused using AZ and the EU have said it's okay.

You are trying to make two and two equal five and failing miserably.

[harrybarracuda]

You know, here in the US ,I keep hearing about the Israelis. They have 8 million people , here in the Us we vaccinate that many every three days. I herd the same about security in airports. "Israel has good security, why cant our airports me as secure? They only have one main airport, we have what 100? and we are not an apartheid country. something that we used to be very much against when it came to South Africa.
Israel? well,, no so much.
They probably bought all that vaccine with the billions we send them every year.

Actually they got a good deal on it because they were early adopters and agreed to share lots of data with Pfizer/Biontech. And their security is top notch because they are rightly paranoid about it and their people will accept any amount of inconvenience to avoid being blown out of the sky.

They do their own security at foreign airports and if you want to fly El Al you have to arrive a lot earlier than other airlines.

[taxexile]

Italy's medicines authority says suspension was 'political' as anger grows in Berlin over delay to vaccination program

Merkel's government at war over AstraZeneca 'disaster' as EU vaccine chaos deepens.

Italy's medicines authority says suspension was 'political' as anger grows in Berlin over delay to vaccination program

By
James Crisp,
EUROPE EDITOR, BRUSSELS ;

16 March 2021 • 12:18pm

A crisis threatens to engulf Angela Merkel’s government over her decision to suspend use of the AstraZeneca vaccine along with 15 other EU countries, which the Italian medicines regulator admitted was a “political decision”.

Sweden and Portugal became the latest EU countries to pause use of the vaccine, despite EU regulators and the World Health Organisation saying the Oxford University jab was safe and vaccinations lagging far behind the UK, US and Israel, after reports of seven deaths from blood clots.

There was fury in Berlin after Germany on Monday joined France, Italy and Spain in stopping the roll-out of the vaccine, until the results of a European Medicines Agency (EMA) probe into blood clots caused by the jab on Thursday.

Germany’s national disease centre warned that the country is now in a third wave and facing an exponential rise in cases that could see it break previous records by Easter.

Mrs Merkel’s closest ally, the Bavarian regional leader Markus Söder, made his feelings clear, telling German television he was ready to take the vaccine “immediately”.


Her main coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD) publicly condemned the decision as a “U-turn” that suggested the government has “no clear policy”. Germany, France and the Netherlands all said the vaccine was safe last week before later suspending the jabs.

One senior SPD politician went further, describing the move as a “disaster” and calling on the health minister, Jens Spahn, to resign. The opposition Free Democrat Party called for an inquiry and said Mrs Merkel’s government had “unnecessarily endangered human lives”.

“The bottom line, sadly, is that this good and effective vaccine is not being accepted by the public in many countries because of the row and the suspension,” said Frank Ulrich Montgomery, the German head of the World Medical Association.

Thousands of Germans were informed that their appointments for the jab had been cancelled because of the suspension, leaving them with no idea when they will be vaccinated. There is now talk of people who have received one AstraZeneca jab needing to start again and be given two jabs of a rival vaccine.

The Institute for the German Economy warned that suspending use of the vaccine for just one week could cost the German economy €2bn (£1.7bn), as Germany prepares for September elections for a successor to Mrs Merkel.

“This is how trust is lost”, said Eugen Brysch of the German Foundation for Patients’ Protection, accusing Mr Spahn of “igniting a conflagration”.


France, Italy and Germany have all denied the suspension is politically motivated after AstraZeneca told the European Commission on Saturday there would be a 60 million dose shortfall in its planned deliveries to the EU by the end of March.

France’s Industry Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said on Tuesday AstraZeneca's CEO was in the "hot seat" over the delays. She said refusing to pause the jabs as a precaution would have fuelled mistrust of the vaccine, which has been dogged by unfounded fears it is less effective than other jabs.

"There must not be public mistrust. If you see decisions taken in other countries, the risk is that a mistrust of the vaccine develops," she said.

The director general of Italy’s medicines agency said the benefits of the jab outweighed the risks but that the decision to suspend was taken at political level.

“We got to the point of a suspension because several European countries, including Germany and France, preferred to interrupt vaccinations [...] to put them on hold in order to carry out checks. The choice is a political one,” Nicola Magrini told the la Repubblica newspaper.

There have been eight deaths and four cases of serious side-effects following vaccinations in Italy, he added.

On Tuesday Belgium’s health minister attacked the EU suspensions as “irresponsible”.

Frank Vandenbroucke said, “It's a kind of waterfall of decisions. I spoke to my Portuguese colleague yesterday. There they decided to suspend the vaccination campaign, but they have no data to do so.

“We are never going to get Europe vaccinated like this. Then we're going to get a third, fourth, fifth wave. We have to be careful with those chain reactions,” he said.

Marc von Ranst, Belgium's leading virologist, said that stopping the vaccinations would have meant Covid hospitalisations, long-term organ damage and deaths.

Poland has also refused to delay use of AstraZeneca. Michal Dworczyk, the Polish prime minister's chief of staff told the Polish Press Agency, "In my opinion, it is possible that we are dealing with a planned disinformation campaign and a brutal fight of medical companies."

In Brussels, the European Commission chief spokesman said that the suspension could "possibly" hurt the EU target of vaccinating 70 percent of the adult population by September 21. Asked if Ursula von der Leyen would still accept the AstraZeneca vaccine, he replied, "of course".


The UK has had one case of thrombosis in 11 million AstraZeneca vaccinations and British scientists have described the suspensions as “baffling”.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is urging countries to continue using the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.

According to AstraZeneca, about 17 million people in the EU and the UK have received a dose of the vaccine, with fewer than 40 cases of blood clots reported to date.

Portugal’s director-general of Health Graça Freitas said, “If you have been vaccinated, stay calm. These reactions are extremely rare and phenomena similar to those found in other countries have not been reported in our country."

María Jesús Lamas, the director of the Spanish Medicines Agency, said that the number of cases of thrombosis that could be linked to the vaccine was still very small. “We are talking about very few cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, 11 so far, and 17 million AstraZeneca vaccines have been administered in the world,” Dr Lamas said.

The suspensions are the latest twist in AstraZeneca’s strained relationship with the EU.

Brussels blames delivery delays from the British-Swedish company for the glacial pace of its vaccination rollout. AstraZeneca has promised 100 million doses in the first half of 2021 but is now accused of breaching its contract by the EU, which it denies.

The new delivery target, which is 10m less than a previous March pledge of 40m doses, hinges on whether the Netherlands grants regulatory approval to a factory in the country.

Emmanuel Macron said it was “quasi-ineffective” in the over 65s in January after false reports in the German media claiming it was just 8 percent effective in the elderley, which are believed to have hit pick-up of the vaccine on the Continent.

A string of EU countries ignored EMA advice and imposed age limits on the use of the jab before later clearing it for the elderly.

Merkel's government at war over AstraZeneca 'disaster' as EU vaccine chaos deepens

well troy, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, in spite of denials by the health ministers of eu states and in spite of the disruption to the vaccination roll out in the eu. why on earth have merkel, macron and others decided to conjure up reasons to ban its use, if not because of hubris due to the fact that other countries, notably the usa, the uk and israel have beaten them to it.

[harrybarracuda]

Yeah, yeah, waffle, waffle and silly games. Sweden has also paused using AZ and the EU have said it's okay.

You are trying to make two and two equal five and failing miserably.

Actually I don't think he is. The Guardian article explains quite clearly why this is at best an over-reaction.

The decision by the authorities in Germany, France and Italy to suspend the administration of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine has been described as a "political choice" by the director-general of the Italian Medicines Agency. He says the treatment is effective and safe, with a broadly positive benefit/risk ratio.


Speaking on French radio on Tuesday morning, Clément Beaune, Secretary for European Affairs in the French government, explained that the Paris decision to suspend the AstraZeneca treatment had been taken following advice from Germany.
The German health authorities warned that they had observed a number of cases of serious side-effects.
But Clément Beaune denied that there was "a coordinated effort" against any particular treatment. "That claim," Beaune insisted, "is excessive".

Political storm in the wake of French suspension of AstraZeneca Covid vaccine

[harrybarracuda]

And..

“The decisions by France, Germany and other countries look baffling,” said Dr. Michael Head, senior research fellow in Global Health at the University of Southampton, U.K.

“The data we have suggests that numbers of adverse events related to blood clots are the same (and possibly, in fact lower) in vaccinated groups compared to unvaccinated populations,” he continued.

“Halting a vaccine roll out during a pandemic has consequences. This results in delays in protecting people, and the potential for increased vaccine hesitancy, as a result of people who have seen the headlines and understandably become concerned. There are no signs yet of any data that really justify these decisions,” Head added.

AstraZeneca Covid vaccine: Doctors react as EU countries suspend shot

[harrybarracuda]

It's obviously a political decision. Probably still trying to have a pop at the UK for Brexit, silly fuckers.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) also issued the same opinion on Monday with its chief scientist, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, affirming that the rates at which blood clots have developed in people who received the AstraZeneca vaccine "are in fact less than what you would expect in the general population.

Watch: EMA 'firmly convinced' benefits of AstraZeneca vaccine higher than risks | Euronews

[taxexile]

explained that the Paris decision to suspend the AstraZeneca treatment had been taken following advice from Germany.

that's just the french doing what they do best, i.e. cocksucking bavarian bratwurst for handouts as per usual.

[harrybarracuda]

Do you need any more evidence of eurotrash political shenanigens?

OTTAWA -- The panel of medical experts advising the federal government on vaccination has expanded its recommendation for the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine to now include people 65 years of age and over.
The National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) issued new advice Tuesday morning stating that the two-dose viral vector vaccine can and should be given to seniors.

<snip>

“Health Canada is actively monitoring the ongoing situation in Europe… Based on the information that Health Canada has reviewed, the number of cases of thromboembolic adverse events at this point in time are lower than the rates that would be expected in the population that has been vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine,” said Health Canada director Marc Berthiaume on Tuesday

.

NACI expands recommendations clearing use of AstraZeneca's vaccine for people 65 and older

[Troy]

well troy, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, in spite of denials by the health ministers of eu states and in spite of the disruption to the vaccination roll out in the eu. why on earth have merkel, macron and others decided to conjure up reasons to ban its use, if not because of hubris due to the fact that other countries, notably the usa, the uk and israel have beaten them to it.

No I don't believe that's the reason, I believe it has been caused by media hype more than any other reason. That is, the reporting of rare ocassions as if they were the norm. This has become the typical modern media 'click bait' syndrome that has caused problems the world over.

If it was a sour grapes issue then the EU would be the ones calling for a pause in its use and that is not the case.

The idea that it is some sort of EU vs UK battle is silly nonsense. Pfizer/Biontech is US/German and AZ is UK/Sweden and such an idea would mean it unlikely that Sweden would also pause vaccination. It would have helped if the UK ONS had published its figures on severe side effects and deaths related to the UK vaccination programme instead of stating that it is not within the data protection Act to do so and they will provide the information within their own timescales.

Naturally it gives the Brexit brigade an ounce of justification despite the fact all EU nations (including the UK) could have opted in or out of the EU vaccine procurement. There are elections in Germany in 2021 and French elections in 2022. This is an excellent opportunity for the opposition in both countries to make leadership look weak and ineffective.

Germany lifted some restrictions to the Covid lockdown last week, after tight controls since early December. Everyone went out to the shops (it was like the freaking January sales) and Covid quickly became out of control again (where i live it went from 13/100K to 50/100K in <5 days).

All that said, the vaccination programme in the EU is a disaster and Governments are rapidly losing support. It doesn't help when a couple of German politicians have been found making profit from the crisis.

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Actually they got a good deal on it because they were early adopters and agreed to share lots of data with Pfizer/Biontech. And their security is top notch because they are rightly paranoid about it and their people will accept any amount of inconvenience to avoid being blown out of the sky.

They do their own security at foreign airports and if you want to fly El Al you have to arrive a lot earlier than other airlines.

You mean other countries told Pfizer to to keep their vaccine if it meant that they had to share their data with them. . I am shocked.
Very smart of Israel to agree. LOL
But that not the point . IMO if you are a rich country ,as Israel is, it is not very difficult to vaccinate six million people , As I said here in the US we do it every two or three days.

[taxexile]

troy

It would have helped if the UK ONS had published its figures on severe side effects and deaths related to the UK vaccination programme instead of stating that it is not within the data protection Act to do so and they will provide the information within their own timescales.

the uk gov. have published data on vaccination side effects here ...


Coronavirus vaccine - weekly summary of Yellow Card reporting - GOV.UK.

i understand what you say about the eu virus/ vaccination response but eu/uk rivalry is driving it as much as any of the other reasons you have given.

[panama hat]

Yeah, yeah, waffle, waffle and silly games. Sweden has also paused using AZ and the EU have said it's okay.

You are trying to make two and two equal five and failing miserably.

Taxidriver is merely bringing his anti-EU Brexit shit over here now

cocksucking bavarian bratwurst for handouts

Merkel's government at war

euro vaccine shitshow

they forced out of the 27 "equal partners" for vaccination programs into pfizer in germany and sanofi in france

and then out of nowhere plucky little underdog blighty comes up astra zenica, the anglo swedish company headuartered in cambridge.

Taxidriver is merely bringing his anti-EU Brexit shit over here now . . .

[Joe 90]

Oluwo Fish Market teems with life. It is a wet market just outside Lagos, Nigeria's largest city.

ITV News secretly filmed there - a place awash with animals - alive and dead. Scientists believe wet markets are a breeding ground for disease, a high risk environment, from where the next pandemic could emerge.

The very concept of a “wet market” means the presence of blood and bodily fluids.

It is a marketplace selling fresh meat and fish, as opposed to a “dry market” that sells durable products.

Not all wet markets sell live animals. Not all of them trade in wild and exotic animals, but some do, and some of those have been linked to outbreaks of zoonotic diseases, where an infection crosses the species barrier from animal to human. Exhibit A. Covid-19. The pandemic that allegedly originated at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China.

Inside the market, ITV News
There are few, if any, hygiene measures in place at the market.
Credit: ITV News
Video obtained by both ITV News and the charity WildAtLife shows live crocodiles having their scales removed, pangolins being kicked and abused and dogs boiled alive.

Multiple primates were seen imprisoned in cages, the heads of others were for sale. It was difficult to watch when a baby baboon, trapped inside a birdcage, reached out to the camera grasping for freedom, as a decapitated monkey was sold next to him.

[Latindancer]

Awful, and one of the many reasons I have been vegetarian most of my life.


I reckon the next pandemic will somehow involve pigs. They are genetically very close to humans.

[Klondyke]

EMA 'firmly convinced' benefits of AstraZeneca vaccine higher than risks

Does it mean the number of people staying alive is bigger than of the ones who die afterwards?

[harrybarracuda]

You mean other countries told Pfizer to to keep their vaccine if it meant that they had to share their data with them. . I am shocked.
Very smart of Israel to agree. LOL
But that not the point . IMO if you are a rich country ,as Israel is, it is not very difficult to vaccinate six million people , As I said here in the US we do it every two or three days.

<sigh>

Reasons behind this roaring start are fast emerging: Netanyahu revealed on January 7 that Israel struck an agreement with Pfizer to exchange citizens' data for 10 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine, including a promise of shipments of 400,000-700,000 doses every week.
Under this agreement, Israel will provide details to Pfizer (as well as and the World Health Organization) about the age, gender and medical history of those receiving the jab as well as its side effects and efficacy. No identifying information will be given in order to maintain some privacy.

The secrets to Israel’s coronavirus vaccination success – POLITICO