Currently Australia only administers 2 vaccines: Pfizer/BioNTech - for frontline workers and most vulnerable plus AstraZeneca - for the public. As of yesterday, Health Minister Greg Hunt said over 841,885 vaccine doses had been given since the program began. A record number of daily vaccinations, more than 79,000, were recorded on Thursday. 

Cases of blood related clotting seem to be rare with numbers no more than the usual amount of non-vaccine clotting cases reported normally.

3 April 2021

• Medical experts say there is no need to panic as Australia's medical regulator reviews the case of a man who was hospitalised with blood clots after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine. The man had received a dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine nearly two weeks earlier. However, Professor Michael Kidd told media on Saturday there was currently no definitive evidence to prove the link. About 30,000 people develop blood clots each year in Australia, and hundreds of thousands of people across the country have received the AstraZeneca vaccine without any recorded major side effects.

• Out of a total of 18.1 million doses given, British regulators on Thursday said they have identified 30 cases of rare blood clot events after the use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, 25 more than the agency previously reported. It put the count at 22 reports of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, an extremely rare brain clotting ailment, and 8 reports of other clotting events associated with low blood platelets.

Toot2000, there is nothing ' confusing' about vaccinations in Australia. There are currently only two approved for use here and you do not get a choice which one you will be offered nor can you choose which one to accept. It's quite simple.

Further, Phizer must be imported from Europe and the European Union has banned exports of vaccines, including to Australia. That leaves AstraZeneca. That too is banned from export in the EU which is primarily the reason why we are behind in the vaccination stakes. We simply did not have the vaccine available. Now that CSL is making our own Astrazenica vaccine, the rollout will be faster. And that means AstraZeneca is the vaccine most people will be offered.

Now in the future, there may well be other vaccines that become available but that is still some way off. Perhaps in a year or two, there may be a choice available for the individual to choose from but until then, stop trying to make problems where there are none.

I had my first dose of Astra Zeneca a week ago & had no side affects at all, not even a slightly sore arm. I've had worse side effects with other vaccinations! I have some underlying health problems, so thought it was very important for me to have it as soon as it was available. My Mother who is 93, has had both of her Pfizer doses & was very happy to have them (also no side effects)! I don't really understand why so many people are reluctant to have it, as once the majority of people have been vaccinated, it will make it much safer to get back to our normal everyday life & also we would be able to travel more.

I'm sure most people don't give anaesthetics a second thought and have them as requried yet they kill 1 in 100,000 people, far more than these vaccines supposedly do.

   

I had my first vaccination 2 weeks ago, and booked in for my second shot in 2 weeks.  No side effects, felt a bit tired for a couple of days, but nothing else.

I am amazed at the number of people who ignore the Doctors and scientists who recommend the vaccination and prefer to follow the opinion of untrained folk.

Yes, I'll be having my flu shot at the appropriate time.

"I think I'll wait a while before rushing in"

Is it possible to do both those things?

I have a history of blood clots in my left leg and I am taking a blood-thinning tablet every day. My left leg has grown a new artery to bypass the blockage, delivering blood to my feet. I can now walk without any pain. I am not sure that the vaccine, AtraZencia, will activate this condition in my body or leg. I hope this vaccine will save my life and others. I look forward to having this vaccination when it is available for roll-out.

 I want to know what has happened to the Pfizer vacinne the Morrison government said they had ordered 20 million doses which equates to 10 million people getting it less the ones they use .If the AstraZeneca  isn't good enough for the prime minister or his family it isn't good enough for me.

Relations in the UK had theirs, his wife had a sensativity to many things like I do, so she was given the AstraZeneca for that reason, her husband had Pfizer.  My husband and I are about to have our flu jabs this week and the Astra Zeneca at the end of May.

???? Just out of Europe at 7.25pm Perth Time.

 

A European drug regulator chief has insisted there is a 'clear' link between AstraZeneca's Covid vaccine and blood clots.

Marco Cavaleri, head of vaccines at the European Medicines Agency, made the claim today - but admitted they were still not sure how the jab was triggering the problem.

'In the next few hours, we will say that there is a connection, but we still have to understand how this happens,' he told Italian newspaper Il Messaggero.

'We are trying to get a precise picture of what is happening, to define in detail this syndrome due to the vaccine.

'Among the vaccinated, there are more cases of cerebral thrombosis... among young people than we would expect.'

Britain's medical regulator is expected not to recommend the suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccines use in under-30s today amid a review of its safety.

The MHRA announced on Friday it has seen 30 brain clot cases in 18.1million AstraZeneca-vaccinated people - around one in every 600,000 people (0.00017 per cent).

But there are fears that while the benefits of being vaccinated far outweigh the risks in elderly people, the use of the Oxford-made jab in younger indivuals is 'more complicated'.

European countries have raised concerns over cases of a very rare blood clot that stops blood draining from the brain properly, called CVST or cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, recorded in a few cases after people received the jab.

Germany and the Netherlands have suspended use of the jab for people under 60 amid fears over the clots. 

'Professor Lockdown' Neil Ferguson said today the AstraZeneca jab may not be suitable for young people if its link to blood clots is proven to be true.

An Australian government source told the Reuters agency on Tuesday that the European Union had blocked the export of the 3.1m AstraZeneca doses and that Australia had little hope of getting the remaining 400,000 doses it has been promised on time.

“They’ve blocked 3.1m shots so far … we haven’t given up hope but we’ve stopped counting them in our expected supplies,” the source said.

 

The European Union has denied blocking shipments of 3.1m doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine from going to Australia, contradicting Scott Morrison’s claim that international supply issues were to blame for missing rollout targets.

At a press conference on Tuesday after after New Zealand announced a trans-Tasman travel bubble, the prime minister said Australia had not received 3.1m AstraZeneca doses from overseas. He said that was to blame for the massive discrepancy between the 855,000 vaccinations administered so far and the missed target of 4m doses by the end of March.

But a European Commission spokesperson said the only export request rejected out of nearly 500 received has been so far a shipment of 250,000 doses to Australia in March, which is well known.

“We cannot confirm any new decision to block vaccine exports to Australia or to any other country,” the spokesperson told a news conference in Europe on Tuesday.

The Nationals deputy leader, David Littleproud, said on Monday that Australia had been “badly let down” by the EU. “The arithmetic is simple on this,” he told the Nine Network. “We are 3m [doses] short because of the EU who cut us short.”

Source:  Guardian Australia

Who do we believe?

European Union denies claim it blocked shipment of 3.1 million AstraZeneca COVID vaccines to AustraliaBy Jack Hawke in London  2 hrs ago    Australia to push ahead with vaccine rollout despite new blood clot concernsProtest targets Bravus coal mine in Qld© (Morgan Sette/AAP Image via AP) Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks during the opening of Raytheon Australia's Centre for Joint Integration in Adelaide, Wednesday, March 31, 2021.

The European Union has denied claims it blocked a shipment of more than 3 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 from coming to Australia.

On Tuesday Prime Minister Scott Morrison said 3.1 million doses of the vaccine had been blocked from importation while defending accusations his government's vaccine rollout had been botched.

However the EU denied responsibility after Reuters reported an Australian government source had told them the EU had blocked 3.1 million shots of the vaccine.

The chief spokesman for the European Commission – the EU's executive branch – told a press conference on Tuesday (local time) that the only vaccine export authorisation request that had been denied  to Australia was the highly publicised one of 250,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from Italy last month.

"There was, at that point in time only one request, which had been refused, which is the well-known request to Australia but for much, much smaller quantities which dates now back quite some time and there has been no further development since then," spokesman Eric Mamer said.

"So we certainly cannot confirm any new decision to block vaccine exports to Australia or to any other country for that matter."

It comes as Australia lags on its vaccine rollout, with official figures on Monday showing just over 850,000 AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines had been administered across the country, well short of the 4 million doses the government had been promising by April earlier this year.

The EU itself has been battling large shortfalls of the AstraZeneca vaccine as the pharmaceutical company struggles to cope with demand, and is now aiming to deliver only 100 million doses to Europe by the end of June out of the 300 million it had promised.

An EU official told Reuters it was not responsible for AstraZeneca's failure in upholding commitments to other countries.

Earlier this year the EU tightened its rules on vaccine exports in an effort to secure its own supply, which means EU member nations where the vaccine is being produced can refuse to authorities exports to non-EU countries.

'They cut us short'

On Tuesday Mr Morrison said Australia's vaccine rollout had been hampered by supply issues overseas, claiming the import of 3.1 million vaccine doses had been blocked.

"In early January, we had anticipated we would have those 3.1 million vaccines," he said.

"Those 3.1 million vaccines were not supplied to Australia, and that explains the difference between the numbers.

"We made that very clear back in February, and we made it very clear that they were indicative figures we were working to at that time."

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud went further, accused the EU of cutting Australia "short" of the vaccine.

"We are 3 million short at the moment," he told the Nine Network.

"We were 3 million short by the EU.

"They cut us short."

The initial shipments of the AstraZeneca vaccine were intended to boost the start of Australia's vaccine rollout, with local drug manufacturer CSL set to produce the 50 million shots.

Around 830,000 local doses were delivered in the first week of the program, but it is not clear how many have been released since then.

There are 2.5 million doses remaining in CSL's cold storage, awaiting batch testing by the medicine regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

And the debate rolls on ... efficacy, side effects, supply, timelines ... to have or not to have.

Can't recall any such government, media or public scrutiny being applied to annual flu and flu jabs.

At times it seems to me we are in a COVID conversation frenzy (as well as a pandemic).

To be expected I guess when COVID numbers and above-average deaths are so high in many parts of the world and the lives of so many have ended or have been put on hold due to restrictions.