13 April

Very difficult to talk about vaccines without triggering the anti-vaxxers or New Age wellness "just strengthen your immune system" fruit loops. But I'm wavering on this AZ vaccine, for a variety of reasons. A longish post but to me the public conversation on this seems wrong. 1) People are being told that the risk is tiny, statistically. That's true, most other medicine has a *much* higher risk. But...normally you get medicine for illnesses you HAVE. Nobody really has Covid in Australia right now, nor are they likely to catch it any time soon. 2) Risk at an individual level becomes a certainty at the population level. If the AZ vaccine were used exclusively in Australia, roughly 25 people would die because of it, on current data. Those 25 people would likely not have contracted Covid either, so they're preventable deaths. First do no harm, first rule of medicine. There are safer medicines available. 3) The great push to get AZ into people is mostly the rush to get the country open. However the assumptions there are flaky, assuming the rest of the world will be open soon and we'll be left behind. The rest of the world is mostly a Covid train wreck, there's no evidence the great global travel orgasm will be happening again any time soon. 4) Australia already has enough Pfizer (zero risk of clots and death) under contract to vaccinate every adult in the country. It could also buy Moderna, and has orders of Novavax. The argument against using these is that it might take longer, but as above - there's no evidence the world will be opening safely soon. 5) Ultimately the big rush to vaccinate is the same Economy-driven bullshit that got the world into the mess it's in now in the first place. The rush to save the Economy, which doesn't even exist. 6) New Zealand did what Australia has now half-done. Said OK, we'll use Pfizer for everybody. I suspect the feds will need to say that here too, if they want to save this vaccine rollout. Not just under-50s - everybody. 7) Don't call the public stupid for wanting to avoid an avoidable risk. Use already available alternative vaccines. Make our economic worshippers do some actual hard work for the public good, for once.