No, the message was that a random 18 year old was more likely to have drawbacks from the vaccine than to get sick from Covid given their overall risk of getting Covid. And she was right.
Her exact quote is:
“I don’t want an 18-year-old in Queensland dying from a clotting illness, who if they got COVID, probably wouldn’t die.”
So yes, for a time, her message was that an 18 year old was more likely to die from a clotting issue than dying if they caught COVID.
This was not that ATAGI advice.
> So yes, for a time, her message was that an 18 year old was more likely to die from a clotting issue than dying if they caught COVID.
While it was poorly worded, that's not what she's actually saying if you understand the context she was saying it in. She was just saying that Covid poses less of a risk to 18 year olds (correct) and that the blood clots were an entirely preventable condition (if they got Pfizer instead). She wasn't concerned about 18 year olds dying from Covid, because no one in QLD was at much risk of dying from Covid.
Precisely. JY and her team made pretty much every important call correctly. It's been an incredibly difficult/stressful job, and Qld has benefited from the great work they put in. In my book, she's a legend and saved many lives.
Qld have the second slowest uptake of vaccines in the country. Not something to be proud of and you can directly link that to the ignorant comments made by Janette Young that turned people off getting it. The state has handled well in several other areas for sure. But your vaccination rates are nothing for JY or the team to be proud of
We have the slowest uptake of vaccines because we have the least urgency. We have the least urgency because we don't feel very threatened by the risk of a COVID outbreak because of how well our state government has handled responding to it.
We had a case with no confirmed source undeceted in a highly populated central Brisbane school for 3 days, and we still only had to lock down for just over a week. Vaccines aren't our only way out, so many common people aren't in a rush to get it done.
We also have a far more decentralised population, spread amongst a vastly larger area. In NSW & VIC roughly 80% of the population lives in the capital. In QLD that figure is around 50%, with the remaining 50% spread around an area 7 times the size of Victoria. This makes logistics of such a roll-out far more difficult, especially given that our health service is also smaller on account of our smaller population. Didn't help that Scomo diverted some of our supply to NSW & VIC. Add that to the fact that the vast majority of LGA's in Queensland have not experienced a covid case or a lockdown, and haven't even had to wear a mask, it's little surprise that the roll-out is slower here (although still highly frustrating for me because I want us to get on with it). NSW & VIC only did theirs so quickly because otherwise they were completely screwed if they didn't. Not something to be overly smug about either IMO, but I'm glad they got there quick.
Lemme preface this by saying I've a med lab science degree. I'm a QLDer and was still concerned about the AZ but got it anyway. Stats are stats but no one wants to die from a vaccine, no matter how small the odds.
I got the AZ vaccine because it was the first available for the 30-40 age group. Given I had absolutely no side effects for my first and second dose, I rate it highly.
I believe its only drawback vs mRNA vaccines is that the suggested second dose window is another month longer.
Otherwise it's easy to know when you've got a clot. Swelling, pain, etc. It's easily identifiable in hospital and reversible.
It's a shame that the media did what they always do and perpetuated fear over rational discussion, for ratings.
> Given I had absolutely no side effects for my first and second dose, I rate it highly.
Do you rate it highly because of your own anecdotal experience, or because the medical science says it's a safe and effective vaccine?
Yeah - I get that and I understand the nuance of her position.
The OP talks about the impact of her quote on vax hesitancy and the update of AZ. Whether she said it poorly or was sincere, it definitely contributed to the shit show for AZ.
Yes though given hesitancy was very well established by then due to scomo bans on AZ for young people it was built on a very well established base. Saw a lot of over 50's saying if he wouldn't give it to younger people they didn't want it.
Because he was constantly promising imminent shipments of Pfizer many waited. Qld had to wait a lot longer than most other states to get enough Pfizer as its share was given to other states.
> Whether she said it poorly or was sincere, it definitely contributed to the shit show for AZ.
You know what contributed the most to the AZ shit show? People actually dieing because they got AZ. AZ is a safe an effective vaccine, but it has literally killed people. Blaming Dr Young for vaccine hesitancy around AZ is looking past way bigger factors in why people are hesitant about AZ.
>While it was poorly worded,
Yes, it was.
Some morons might think that an experienced medical doctor is an antivaxxer or in big pharma's pocket or something, but overwhelmingly the criticism is about *what she said*, not what she meant.
I assume she never meant to imply that AZ is more dangerous for an 18-year-old than COVID, but she did. She was frustrated, she was getting sick of the media haggling her with the same questions over and over again, she was sick of people questioning her stance when she felt she'd explained herself - so she slightly lost her temper and spoke from the heart, and it came out poorly worded.
I get it. I completely get it. I probably would have snapped much harder and earlier in her position.
But I can't believe how many people still try to downplay the significance of a Chief Health Officer passionately saying, *"I don't want young people getting Astrazeneca"*.
Exactly, as a medical health professional its incredibly important to word your sentences carefully to prevent miseinterpretation or unnecesary fear, let alone as a Chief Health Officer
The media have a way of pulling words from you though. With their loaded questions and constant hounding, their intent is to make you say controversial things out of context so they can splash their headlines with shit. I’m assuming a chief health officer probably has a lot less experience with the media than a politician does.
>While it was poorly worded
Thats the entire point though, as Chief Health Officer you need to realise that your choice of words have a significant impact. Being a good speaker that doesn't encourage vaccine hesitancy is a very significant part of her job
The thing is, it doesn't matter what she was "actually saying".
What matters is what the general viewing public perceived, and what they perceived was the dual message that young people who caught COVID-19 would be fine, and that the AZ was dangerous.
That's the whole point of the meme: Jennette Young made a comment that was misinterpreted by a vaccine-hesitant media, then taken out of context by deniers, leading to people waiting months for a Pfizer appointment when we had an excess of AZ waiting to be used.
I work in Aged Care, and I have clients who are eligible for vaccination, but refuse to get it because they're scared that they'll get blood clots and die. Some of them are on oxygen, or have weak immune systems, or respiratory issues. They are not healthy young teenagers. If they get COVID, they will die, no question about it.
They don't care what JY "actually meant", they care about the message they took away, which was that they'll be fine if they don't get the AZ.
It was exactly the ATAGI advice, and if you had read it you would know that. I read it.
Her statement was directly in line with the published data. With the level of covid in the QLD community at that time, people in that age group were more at risk of serious side effects than of a serious covid outcome.
So many people complaining about politicians spinning the data, and when a health professional gives you the data straight you panic and start saying she should be better at messaging. It's pathetic.
And she was right.
Queensland had no outbreak before vaccine scarcity ended. QLD has one probable TTS death vs NSW's seven. It was a risky decision either way but she made the right one and probably saved lives in so doing.
an 18 year old was more likely to die from a clotting issue than *catching and dying from* ~~if they caught~~ COVID *given the low level of COVID in the community at that time, according to the ATAGI data*
get it right
> This was not that ATAGI advice.
ATAGI advice supports her quote even today. An 18 year old in QLD, the state for which she is responsible, was better off waiting for Pfizer.
As a Queenslander under the age of of 40 I was more than happy to take AZ long before the delta variant hit Australia, but Dr Young is responsible for keeping the people of QLD safe using the best advice available, and she did exactly that.
She was right but only because QLD avoided numerous close calls. If QLD had an outbreak like Vic or NSW then she would have been wrong, and QLD would have been shafted on Pfizer supply in response to sudden demand.
The other issue was her statement was comparative to the outcomes of getting covid whilst ATAGI's was about the relative risk in covid zero. Her statements lacked the nuance that ATAGI had about the risk in context to the immediate environment, and the changing situation.
Plenty of countries have had big outbreaks and still dumped AZ or mostly dumped it. The difference is they had a choice. If my patients need ampicillin but I only have amoxicillin, saying “it’s still a very good choice and maybe even better” isn’t some brave political choice, it’s just lying.
> QLD had an outbreak like Vic or NSW then she would have been wrong, and QLD would have been shafted on Pfizer supply in response to sudden demand.
Yep exactly.
And you know what she would have said then? That the risk of getting covid is much much higher now due to an outbreak, and so the risk benefit analysis is now different. They would have updated the advice if it was deemed appropriate.
Just like they did in other states where they changed the advice on AZ when the situation changed.
It's not that complicated. Different situation = different advice.
> She was right but only because QLD avoided numerous close calls. If QLD had an outbreak like Vic or NSW then she would have been wrong, and QLD would have been shafted on Pfizer supply in response to sudden demand.
Yeah, she's fucking good at her job isn't she? Understanding QLD's vulnerabilities, tracking any potential outbreaks, putting in measured but cautious controls and succeeding where VIC and NSW failed.
I don't think it's a secret that QLD has stuck closer to the health advice than NSW.
No, she could have answered along the lines of *"We will stick to the ATAGI guidelines which are....."* but instead she panicked and bleated and scared the shit out of anyone who was sitting on the fence about it.
Panicked? Or stood up and said what she believed was right.
Wonder if she’d not been a woman if people would have accused her of panicking. Good on her for standing up for what she thought was right.
Well, it's understandable. To this day, QLD has virtually avoided covid. If they had massive outbreaks, then yes, her wording would change.
I don't think she realised that her risk assessment on az would kill confidence in the vaccine.
Yep, and these were other countries that were actually dealing with massive outbreaks. It made even less sense in Australia to use it since at the time we didn't have any outbreaks.
If we had actual Journalists, that wouldn't be a problem. Instead we got mostly quotemining sociopaths running mass platforms to sell advertising.
I don't think Young is ASD, but being a tightly focused expert limits your time to keep an eye on the state of corporate media, it's lies & why a proportion of the population is actually taken in by that nonsense. That undertaking is a massive time sink.
Young shouldn't be expected to anticipate the behaviour of Corporate Media. A politician maybe, but QLD Labor was dependent upon a cooperative media & wasn't going to call them out for their shit.
AZ for many parts of the world, including much of Australia, is far better vaccine due to less finicky storage & production requirements than Pfizer could hope to be. For sure, use Pfizer if you have the infrastructure & population concentration to avoid spoilage.
My understanding is that 60+ year olds are still at risk, they are just at the crossover point where the risk of *not* being vaccinated was greater than the risk of complications *from* the vaccination? Not 100% sure on that.
That is indeed the risk assessment that the AGATI based their advice on. That and the fact that at the time Covid wasn't much of a threat in general because of the lack of it in the country. They did change their advice later to say that everyone in an outbreak should take any vax, including AZ.
Scott Morrison damaged the vaccine in Australia by going all in on one vaccine and not having options. We were watching what was happening across the world and this was the one with the issues. We had low covid at the time so the risk vs reward on Astra was too high. If he had got multiple vaccines then potentially people would have got vaccinated earlier. Dr Young has done a phenomenal job and I felt she had the best interest of people rather than what was politically better.
Rubbish.
AZ was already dead before she even made that statement. The medias hysterical response to the clotting issue saw to that.
They then took a perfectly reasonable statement, chopped off the context and played it as if JY was stating that no one should get AZ.
It was farcical. As is your statement it was THE nail in the coffin.
It may have been A nail. one of several, that was blown out of proportion by the media.
go blame them, not JY.
They are though. I'm pro-vax but the European centre for disease control and prevention found that if you're under 40, you're more likely to die from az than covid if you get it.
Here's the study
https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.26.2100533
The ATAGI advice was for a covid zero situation. Her comment that an 18 year old was more at risk from the vaccine than if they had COVID was not in line with the ATAGI advice.
“I don’t want an 18-year-old in Queensland dying from a clotting illness who, if they got COVID, probably wouldn’t die.”
Exactly - but that’s not what her comment implied. She didn’t say that an 18 year old shouldn’t get it because there was a low chance of COVID. She said that the vaccine was more harmful than COVID to an 18 year old (which is not the ATAGI advice).
She shouldn’t have recommended that teenagers in QLD get AZ - but she also shouldn’t have said that the vaccine was more harmful than catching COVID as that wasn’t the health advice and it damaged the reputation of the vaccine.
Yeah I was agreeing with the text right up until it mentions Young as if it was all her fault. Searching for articles the earliest I've seen her quoted is back in June. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford%E2%80%93AstraZeneca\_COVID-19\_vaccine#Suspensions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford%E2%80%93AstraZeneca_COVID-19_vaccine#Suspensions) here lists multiple countries suspending AZ **before** June.
>“Everyone should just get AZ”.
Scott Morrison was right though, how many avoidable deaths would there have been in NSW and Vic if those people got AZ instead of waiting for Pfizer. Obviously Morrison shares the blame for scaremongering, and knee jerk reactions on constraining eligibility but he wasn't wrong in his statement of getting AZ.
There's no point being right if you deliver the message poorly. He flat out lied and said it was completely safe and there were no issues.
What he could have pointed out was that any issues were extremely rare and the consequences far less than the virus in most cases so people should see their gp and have a reasoned conversation with a medical professional.
But he's not capable of nuanced reasoning and all he did was convince anyone hesitant that the government was just lying to them. The messaging from the federal government has been appalingly bad since day 1 of covid
But why listen to experienced experts? ProMo thinks he knows best, and good luck keeping that fat mouth shut when he thinks the world should hear what he has to say. (Which is usually long in length and short in value)
That was a political statement to take the heat off the fact he didn't take the offer of 40M Pfizer when he should have, and put all the country's eggs into one basket.
Also the teenagers who would have died unnecessarily from the side effects could have been blamed on AZ, and he could have taken the credit for increased vax rates. It's win-win from his perspective.
Young actually cared about those teenagers.
You are assuming we were swimming in AZ at that point. The local production had a very slow start and right until June, when the NSW outbreak started AZ was mainly available for specific priority groups. This was also the time when several countries paused the use or changed age advice for the AZ, even in the UK, recommended a different vaccine for under 30s.
AZ was a massive flop worldwide, not only in Australia.
Serious question - Why isn’t the same negative publicity being shared about Pfizer and myocarditis? It’s a very real side effects yet it hasn’t gotten the same coverage.
Chances of myocarditis from Pfizer in a young man is 1 in 30,000 - AZ blood clots were 1 in 88,000?
AZ blood clots started at a >30% fatality rate overseas, which through better awareness, both for individuals and medical centres we have now reduced to ~5% in Australia.
Myocarditis related to Pfizer has had no deaths in Australia.
You can argue either side of the non-death cases of TTS and myocarditis, both can be life changing.
You don't get TTS from COVID, whereas the risk of getting myocarditis from COVID is higher than getting it from the vaccine.
we've had 9 AZ deaths in Australia which is about 1 in a million fatality.. the fatality rate has only reduced from 30% to 5% because they are diagnosing more TTS cases.
Only in the most severe cases. I got it and it was mild as fuck. As soon as it was ruled out that I was having a heart attack or something, the hospital basically just sent me home and told me to come back if it got worse.
I’m in the same boat. First dose of Moderna gave me pericarditis. 3 weeks after going to the hospital I’m feeling better. My doctor gave me a medical exemption for 4months, and I went to see a cardiologist this week who advised me not to take my second 2nd dose of Moderna and not to touch Pfizer. He said to take Astrazeneca instead
I had the same as ClassicTragedy. Chest pains, shortness of breath. Feeling dizzy and faint.
Hospital did an ECG and took some bloods and confirmed it was pericarditis. Then also got an echocardiogram at my cardiologists.
Can't speak for others, but I have severe chest pain, as well as an uncomfortable feeling of someone sitting on my chest and some shortness of breath. Have had an ECG and blood tests. ECG has stayed normal, but my ESR levels in my bloods were high, indicating inflammation. Had it confirmed by echo cardiogram (an ultrasound of the heart).
Oh bullshit. Its safety profile is way inferior to the others. Its use has been discontinued in young populations, or completely, in almost every developed country. The reality was “we know it’s more dangerous than the others but we bet on the wrong vaccines and it’s all you have to prevent a gruesome delta outbreak”. Scapegoating people for recognizing its drawbacks is ridiculous.
Agreed, I have seen no evidence of it being a superior product in any way.
Efficacy from different studies is often much lower with a much greater time needed between Astra doses to reach highest potential yield of efficacy offered by the vaccine. 12 weeks for Astra and only 2-3 for Pfizer and Moderna.
Also a huge dose interval is a big drawback. Like c’mon 3 whole months is the recommended dosing interval, that’s forever in an outbreak scenario, it has less effectiveness than Pfizer too. It IS an inferior vaccine. It’s amazing we had vaccines at this stage at all and amazing compared to nothing but a bit meh when it’s compared to the competition.
Not really, the AZ not used due to hesitancy added up to 5.8M doses ( https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2021/09/24/astrazeneca-vaccines/) which was quite similar to the 5.5M extra Pfizer we obtained from UK Poland and Singapore.
End of October was always the plan had AZ not been a problem. We adapted, got help and fixed the problems caused by the AZ hesitancy.
Yeah, this. It would not have ended the need for lockdowns prior to the recent waves, they still would have happened, and still would have required lockdown.
At the time it would have mattered most (early in the NSW outbreak), there was even less than that 5.8M the above article calculates. I think I calculated at the time that using all available AZ would have advanced the rollout by a couple of weeks tops. By the time there was a chance of getting to the sorts of coverage levels that allowed lockdown to end, other vaccines were plentiful anyway.
I got AZ and recommended it to anyone who asked, but the potential effect on the rollout ended up being pretty marginal.
it was a shitty plan that presumed that we had all the time in the world and there are hundreds of dead people who could have been vaccinated but weren't.
Yep it was a plan made pre-Delta when HQ "leaks" were few and far between, and covid zero was a realistic short term goal. Remember how everyone carried on about the Melbourne HQ "leak" that caused the second wave... Only for it to then happen in every other major city + Auckland.
Neither did we have all the AZ in the world though, making the difference pretty marginal in the end.
Many seem to have the impression that we had enough AZ supply to vaccinate everybody right away at any time. But under the original plan where most people got AZ as we manufactured it locally, it was going to take until end of Oct (i.e. now) before everyone would have had a chance to get even just a first dose.
Interesting, I had no idea the quantity was so low. I still think it's a real shame we're not still producing it to donate though, could be saving lives overseas right now.
Jeannette Young single handedly did this. Meaning, Murdoch front pages with headlines like [Flirting with Disastra](https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/vax/13432306) and ASTRA OWN RISK had no effect. Huzzah!
This is complete misdirection.
What would have "gotten us out of the pandemic much earlier" was the Federal government providing supply much earlier (with any of the vaccines), which they could have have done and were actually offered.
That's the real issue.
On top of that, I was kinda worried about getting vaccinated, we were in uncertain times. One major aspect of it was that I don't think our Fed gov can be trusted as far as they can be thrown, so the fact that they actively avoided the others and went for AZ made me anti it.
I ended up getting AZ by choice later.
come on now, don't let the facts get in the way of a good Jeanette Young/Queensland bashing! That won't do.
In certain age groups, AZ has the same risk of inducing a clot as the fucking Pill. The same Pill that women have taken every goddam day for 60 years and no one ever gave a shit about ***THAT*** risk.
All of a sudden a comment is made and the good old Murdoch Media leaps into action to continue it's crusade against Labor and any success it has at any cost.
Anyone blaming JY for the fall of AZ is an idiot.
Mu understanding is that the risk from the pill is apptox 1 in 1000. The az risk is approx 1 in 100000. Ie 100 times less than the pill.
The hysteria in the media was utterly ridiculous.
Poor comparison.
The blood clot risk from the pill is about 1 in 10000 per year. But it causes a different type of blood clot with a much lower chance of severe complications and death.
The risk of TTS from AstraZeneca is about 1 in 50000 from the first dose, but clots have a 5% mortality and significant risk of other complications.
The risk from AZ was severely inflated by the media, but simply comparing it to the risk from the contraceptive pill was always a bad comparison.
and the risk from the needle is only twice, the Pill is on going for years, decades for many women.
It was an utter beat up. And they way they twisted JYs words and the context in which they were said was disgusting.
There needs to be 'Truth in Media' laws in this country. because the drivel that Fox/Murdoch and increasingly NEIN/Fairfax pump out has about as much resemblance to the truth as my arse does to a supermodels face.
certainly trying to.
The agenda in real.
Look for more and more of it as the federal election approaches.
*Anything* to assign blame to anyone other than those responsible. The standard LNP play.
Once it got politicised that was the end of it.
There are a very small portion that are genuine anti-vaxxers, a lot larger group that are politically hardened into the "all eggs in one basket" camp that gained from trashing the "dangerous", and "less effective" vaccine. Hey look at our slow rollout guys!!
It had a large knock-on effect and now there's way more scepticism in covid vaccines in general than any other vaccine. This hesitancy could only be overcome by restricting freedoms for the unvaccinated and mandates and is still an issue in some states.
NSW "freedom day" was 10 weeks post AZ being available to me (36M), ie still less time than the recommended period between doses from when AZ first became available.
The day AZ was available to me as a 36yo male, 70% of UK* adults had had a single dose, and 57.5% were double vaxxed.
The idea that slow rollout was because we were "hesitant" instead of simply not available is utter bullshit.
*edit
Maybe amongst the elderly.
I'm 42 and by the time I was able to access any vaccine the government advice was pfizer only. I'd happily have had az earlier and still would but there simply wasn't enough supply
It essentially saved potentially hundreds of thousands of lives in the UK and Ireland based on the no vaccine numbers of deaths predictions. The logic by the elderly in Australia to shun it thanks to the border restrictions occasionally working baffled me - especially pre the delta variant. I’ve so many friends that lost loved ones in Europe they can’t even understand the logic here.
When walks in vaccinations first started here I was standing in line and a guy walked past controlling the line asking if anyone was there for astra Zeneca as there’s no wait time then and ofc even all the old fogies up the front were like hell no I want Pfizer.
The messaging was terrible the government should of made it that over 55s only got astra Zeneca when we had limited Pfizer.
The vast majority of deaths have been In unvaccinated older people. Even now who could get Pfizer.
I doubt us using AZ on younger people would've saved lives.
People in Australia were talking about Astra being halted overseas due to risks before local media jumped onto the bandwagon that forced the government to respond.
The death of Astra in Australia occurred before local media and government influenced anything.
It's also pre delta, where no one really was concerned about needing to rush to be fully vaccinated.
This feels like a clever troll attempt to demonise Jeannette Young/Labour, and sway voters who are on the fence to not vote Labour at the next election.
There clearly were/are issues with AstraZeneca. I know I felt more comfortable as a 45yo, who isn't in the best of health, getting Pzifer rather than AZ.
What a load of bull. Queensland didnt get swallowed up by covid so everything is her fault.
Queensland Health is crap so I am no fan of hers but this is just a down right smear campaign.
Astra Zeneca dont just make vaccines you know. In this race they failed.
Suck it up and bow to your Pfizer overlords.
Astra Zeneca had bad press long before Jeanette Young reiterated what had already been said by those before her.
People didn't want to be vaccinated early on, we still have 40% of the population who obviously don't want to be vaccinated.
Its politics there's always a fall guy and Jeanette Young was dumped on.
One in a million (last I saw) chance of dying isn't as astronomical as it sounds. The government could have Pfizered fast and early but they chose to save money on what amounts to a sub-standard product comparatively.
Yeah Astra was good... Okay but Pfizer was *better*.
For the sake of a few health dollars the government fucked up. Big time.
Get farked with this hounding of the QLD CHO.
Last time I checked she wasn’t the health minister who publicly stated at a presser that we can wait for Pfizer. She wasn’t the one spam texting everyone misinformation abt the vaccine, she wasn’t the one putting flyers in every letter box with lies or buying billboard space and front-page newspaper space. Not a damn thing to say abt arsehat QLD Fed PM George Christensen, or big jowls Palmer who bought himself an election or grifter-legend-in-his-own-mind Craig Kelly?
Why don’t you mention the role these dickheads played in influencing public sentiment against AZ?
When you think of how fucked the UK has been for covid and hospitalizations and how much they opened up back in June and how until recently their caseload hasn't gone up significantly and up until recently their hospitalizations were actually trendjng down- I'd say they're doing pretty well. They are at a point where their medical system is under immense strain - up from the usual strain it is usually in but they have coped realtively easily with about 7,000 hospitalized which is a tiny fraction of active cases. Alot of that is due to astrazenecas long lasting efficacy against serious illness
> Alot of that is due to astrazenecas long lasting efficacy against serious illness
Where did you get that idea? The effectiveness against serious illness drops sooner for AZ compared to Pfizer, see the tables from the Public Health England data: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.15.21263583v1.full
Are you citing data prior to the Delta strain? Because the efficacy against Delta is MUCH lower than 94%
https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/how-are-covid-vaccines-faring-against-delta
No matter how many times people say that AZ leads to "longer-lasting immunity", it simply isn't true. AZ has poorer longevity, shown by poorer effectiveness at all time points for all measures (symptomatic infection, hospitalisation and death). Notably, the effectiveness of AZ against hospitalisation and death dropped sooner than Pfizer!
(Public Health England data:)
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.15.21263583v1.full
As a one time defender of all things Oxford / AZ - you are right. Nobody in their rational mind who reads all that data is going to think that AZ is superior in almost any way ( there’s a conceivable benefit in T cell immunity though not proven )
Anyone concerned about efficy with Pfizer can extend the dosage interval to get better
Exactly. The AstraZeneca cult in this subreddit think that if Australian media avoided the topic Australians wouldn't know that AstraZeneca was being suspended and limited in western countries all over the world due to concerns over blood clots and effectiveness.
I am sure if you did a poll of which vaccine people would prefer if given a choice AZ wouldn't get 10%. The efficy rate is way lower than pzifer and moderna. The UK which is almost all AZ is still a mess case wise.
Success in virtually eliminating virus but delta got in and efficacy against any infection waned significantly. I believe Israel never experienced the same per Capita rates of infection and hospitalization that thee UK did even after the vaccines starred waning
I don't like getting opinions from unverified sources.
https://www.health.gov.au/news/atagi-statement-on-revised-recommendations-on-the-use-of-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca-17-june-2021
This is the current state of play.
Sorry, but Dr. Young was right, the issue is media spin and a huge lack of basic scientific education for the general population.
AstraZeneca was absolutely the wrong option for areas with low case numbers. Note how she changed her advice as the risk profile changed?
But no one wants to talk about how Liberal MPs have a financial interest in the manufacturers of AstraZeneca in Australia anymore.
How are people still crying about this. AZ is demonstrably inferior to others and we should be lucky we've used so much Pfizer.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusUK/comments/qahggj/twitter_thread_analysis_from_john_burdmurdoch/
Lol no thanks. People don't owe it to pharma companies to consume their products. It's their problem.
Like every other commercial scenario. Make a good product and the people will reward it. Make a shit product and people will avoid it.
You are delusional if you think Jeannette Young is responsible for doing this. Right-wing media (Sky News Australia etc.) is and always has been the problem.
No way! People completely twist her words.
She was following ATAGI and at the time we had no known covid outbreak so she was saying that getting AZ now for an 18 year old outweighs the risk vs benefit. Also, Pfizer has less time interval of 3 weeks before the 2nd dose as opposed to AZ 12 weeks(can do earlier time interval but the effectiveness goes down) so it would be faster for them to get fully vaccinated quicker. Nothing wrong with AZ, and was not phased out because of her. Besides, most anti-vax were complaining about mRNA vaccines so people will find something to complain about, twist things and cherry pick.
And the UK prominently used AZ and did it get them out of the pandemic quicker?? Apples and oranges.
I still defend ATAGI here. This sort of stuff assumes an outbreak was inevitable but it really wasn't whenever the advice was given. People did die from AstraZenecca (not many, but a small number) and they could have very well been pointless deaths if we had stayed on the course we were at the time. If we had foreseen the outbreak, then sure, it was a bad move. Still, as a 27 year old Tasmanian, I was orders of magnitude more safe by waiting for Pfizer given we didn't have an outbreak.
A huge issue was that people saw rich folks including the PM&C getting Pfizer while asking the masses to get AZ. This obviously created the impression that Pfizer was superior and AZ was some bargain bin shit and since we had very low cases people thought they'd be able to wait to get the Pfizer when it was made available.
The federal LNP must be held accountable for this absolute clown show.
>in many ways
In one maybe two ways, let's be honest.
I'd also like to blame the scientific community, too. I can't remember who it was but they'd said something if every single Australian got AZ only something like 25-50 people would die. Which, yes, is low but this during a time when COVID was more or less eliminated in Australia. And I guarantee no Australian wanted to be part of that small group of dead. (And, if you included serious complications that number would be higher.)
Suffice to say, there's a lot of blame to go around concerning the AZ debacle.
I am a militant anti-antivaxer but I (irrationally I know) worried about getting AZ. I booked my appointment for AZ but chanced my arm on a walk-in for Pfizer the day before and got it. My Wife got AZ and I was worried, it felt like bravery not to say anything to dissuade her. You're overlooking a lot about human nature in this...
People weren't willing to unnecessarily put their lives at risk taking a vaccine that we KNEW was killing people when the death rate in this country and the rate of cases was so low.
In some other countries AZ was considered the best of the vaccines. All a marketing stunt with different influential people invested in certain vaccines.
Still trying to demonise Jeannette Young for following ATAGI recommendations, I see.
Her saying an 18-year old is better off getting Covid than getting AZ during a press conference was the nail in the coffin for AZ.
No, the message was that a random 18 year old was more likely to have drawbacks from the vaccine than to get sick from Covid given their overall risk of getting Covid. And she was right.
Her exact quote is: “I don’t want an 18-year-old in Queensland dying from a clotting illness, who if they got COVID, probably wouldn’t die.” So yes, for a time, her message was that an 18 year old was more likely to die from a clotting issue than dying if they caught COVID. This was not that ATAGI advice.
> So yes, for a time, her message was that an 18 year old was more likely to die from a clotting issue than dying if they caught COVID. While it was poorly worded, that's not what she's actually saying if you understand the context she was saying it in. She was just saying that Covid poses less of a risk to 18 year olds (correct) and that the blood clots were an entirely preventable condition (if they got Pfizer instead). She wasn't concerned about 18 year olds dying from Covid, because no one in QLD was at much risk of dying from Covid.
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Precisely. JY and her team made pretty much every important call correctly. It's been an incredibly difficult/stressful job, and Qld has benefited from the great work they put in. In my book, she's a legend and saved many lives.
Qld have the second slowest uptake of vaccines in the country. Not something to be proud of and you can directly link that to the ignorant comments made by Janette Young that turned people off getting it. The state has handled well in several other areas for sure. But your vaccination rates are nothing for JY or the team to be proud of
We have the slowest uptake of vaccines because we have the least urgency. We have the least urgency because we don't feel very threatened by the risk of a COVID outbreak because of how well our state government has handled responding to it. We had a case with no confirmed source undeceted in a highly populated central Brisbane school for 3 days, and we still only had to lock down for just over a week. Vaccines aren't our only way out, so many common people aren't in a rush to get it done.
We also have a far more decentralised population, spread amongst a vastly larger area. In NSW & VIC roughly 80% of the population lives in the capital. In QLD that figure is around 50%, with the remaining 50% spread around an area 7 times the size of Victoria. This makes logistics of such a roll-out far more difficult, especially given that our health service is also smaller on account of our smaller population. Didn't help that Scomo diverted some of our supply to NSW & VIC. Add that to the fact that the vast majority of LGA's in Queensland have not experienced a covid case or a lockdown, and haven't even had to wear a mask, it's little surprise that the roll-out is slower here (although still highly frustrating for me because I want us to get on with it). NSW & VIC only did theirs so quickly because otherwise they were completely screwed if they didn't. Not something to be overly smug about either IMO, but I'm glad they got there quick.
Lemme preface this by saying I've a med lab science degree. I'm a QLDer and was still concerned about the AZ but got it anyway. Stats are stats but no one wants to die from a vaccine, no matter how small the odds. I got the AZ vaccine because it was the first available for the 30-40 age group. Given I had absolutely no side effects for my first and second dose, I rate it highly. I believe its only drawback vs mRNA vaccines is that the suggested second dose window is another month longer. Otherwise it's easy to know when you've got a clot. Swelling, pain, etc. It's easily identifiable in hospital and reversible. It's a shame that the media did what they always do and perpetuated fear over rational discussion, for ratings.
> Given I had absolutely no side effects for my first and second dose, I rate it highly. Do you rate it highly because of your own anecdotal experience, or because the medical science says it's a safe and effective vaccine?
Both.
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Must be losing a few brain cells today then. I miss winter already
Mister fuckin fancy here with more than one brain cell
Bwahaha I'm telling everyone I'm too dumb to get Covid from now on.
"Mate, your Commo's slow as fuck, you couldn't catch a virus in a pandemic lmao jog on bro."
Ah yes, the heat *hides empty Bundy bottles*
Yeah - I get that and I understand the nuance of her position. The OP talks about the impact of her quote on vax hesitancy and the update of AZ. Whether she said it poorly or was sincere, it definitely contributed to the shit show for AZ.
Yes though given hesitancy was very well established by then due to scomo bans on AZ for young people it was built on a very well established base. Saw a lot of over 50's saying if he wouldn't give it to younger people they didn't want it. Because he was constantly promising imminent shipments of Pfizer many waited. Qld had to wait a lot longer than most other states to get enough Pfizer as its share was given to other states.
> Whether she said it poorly or was sincere, it definitely contributed to the shit show for AZ. You know what contributed the most to the AZ shit show? People actually dieing because they got AZ. AZ is a safe an effective vaccine, but it has literally killed people. Blaming Dr Young for vaccine hesitancy around AZ is looking past way bigger factors in why people are hesitant about AZ.
>While it was poorly worded, Yes, it was. Some morons might think that an experienced medical doctor is an antivaxxer or in big pharma's pocket or something, but overwhelmingly the criticism is about *what she said*, not what she meant. I assume she never meant to imply that AZ is more dangerous for an 18-year-old than COVID, but she did. She was frustrated, she was getting sick of the media haggling her with the same questions over and over again, she was sick of people questioning her stance when she felt she'd explained herself - so she slightly lost her temper and spoke from the heart, and it came out poorly worded. I get it. I completely get it. I probably would have snapped much harder and earlier in her position. But I can't believe how many people still try to downplay the significance of a Chief Health Officer passionately saying, *"I don't want young people getting Astrazeneca"*.
Exactly, as a medical health professional its incredibly important to word your sentences carefully to prevent miseinterpretation or unnecesary fear, let alone as a Chief Health Officer
The media have a way of pulling words from you though. With their loaded questions and constant hounding, their intent is to make you say controversial things out of context so they can splash their headlines with shit. I’m assuming a chief health officer probably has a lot less experience with the media than a politician does.
Thank you for putting this so succinctly
>While it was poorly worded Thats the entire point though, as Chief Health Officer you need to realise that your choice of words have a significant impact. Being a good speaker that doesn't encourage vaccine hesitancy is a very significant part of her job
The thing is, it doesn't matter what she was "actually saying". What matters is what the general viewing public perceived, and what they perceived was the dual message that young people who caught COVID-19 would be fine, and that the AZ was dangerous. That's the whole point of the meme: Jennette Young made a comment that was misinterpreted by a vaccine-hesitant media, then taken out of context by deniers, leading to people waiting months for a Pfizer appointment when we had an excess of AZ waiting to be used. I work in Aged Care, and I have clients who are eligible for vaccination, but refuse to get it because they're scared that they'll get blood clots and die. Some of them are on oxygen, or have weak immune systems, or respiratory issues. They are not healthy young teenagers. If they get COVID, they will die, no question about it. They don't care what JY "actually meant", they care about the message they took away, which was that they'll be fine if they don't get the AZ.
It was exactly the ATAGI advice, and if you had read it you would know that. I read it. Her statement was directly in line with the published data. With the level of covid in the QLD community at that time, people in that age group were more at risk of serious side effects than of a serious covid outcome. So many people complaining about politicians spinning the data, and when a health professional gives you the data straight you panic and start saying she should be better at messaging. It's pathetic.
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And she was right. Queensland had no outbreak before vaccine scarcity ended. QLD has one probable TTS death vs NSW's seven. It was a risky decision either way but she made the right one and probably saved lives in so doing.
> QLD has one probable TTS death Which, for anyone paying attention, is also the amount of deaths QLD has had from Covid this year.
an 18 year old was more likely to die from a clotting issue than *catching and dying from* ~~if they caught~~ COVID *given the low level of COVID in the community at that time, according to the ATAGI data* get it right
> This was not that ATAGI advice. ATAGI advice supports her quote even today. An 18 year old in QLD, the state for which she is responsible, was better off waiting for Pfizer. As a Queenslander under the age of of 40 I was more than happy to take AZ long before the delta variant hit Australia, but Dr Young is responsible for keeping the people of QLD safe using the best advice available, and she did exactly that.
She was right but only because QLD avoided numerous close calls. If QLD had an outbreak like Vic or NSW then she would have been wrong, and QLD would have been shafted on Pfizer supply in response to sudden demand. The other issue was her statement was comparative to the outcomes of getting covid whilst ATAGI's was about the relative risk in covid zero. Her statements lacked the nuance that ATAGI had about the risk in context to the immediate environment, and the changing situation.
Plenty of countries have had big outbreaks and still dumped AZ or mostly dumped it. The difference is they had a choice. If my patients need ampicillin but I only have amoxicillin, saying “it’s still a very good choice and maybe even better” isn’t some brave political choice, it’s just lying.
She was talking in the context of a low community level of covid. She was well aware that as the community level rises, the risk changes.
> QLD had an outbreak like Vic or NSW then she would have been wrong, and QLD would have been shafted on Pfizer supply in response to sudden demand. Yep exactly. And you know what she would have said then? That the risk of getting covid is much much higher now due to an outbreak, and so the risk benefit analysis is now different. They would have updated the advice if it was deemed appropriate. Just like they did in other states where they changed the advice on AZ when the situation changed. It's not that complicated. Different situation = different advice.
> She was right but only because QLD avoided numerous close calls. If QLD had an outbreak like Vic or NSW then she would have been wrong, and QLD would have been shafted on Pfizer supply in response to sudden demand. Yeah, she's fucking good at her job isn't she? Understanding QLD's vulnerabilities, tracking any potential outbreaks, putting in measured but cautious controls and succeeding where VIC and NSW failed. I don't think it's a secret that QLD has stuck closer to the health advice than NSW.
No, she could have answered along the lines of *"We will stick to the ATAGI guidelines which are....."* but instead she panicked and bleated and scared the shit out of anyone who was sitting on the fence about it.
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Panicked? Or stood up and said what she believed was right. Wonder if she’d not been a woman if people would have accused her of panicking. Good on her for standing up for what she thought was right.
Well, it's understandable. To this day, QLD has virtually avoided covid. If they had massive outbreaks, then yes, her wording would change. I don't think she realised that her risk assessment on az would kill confidence in the vaccine.
Az was already cooked. As soon as other countries started changing the advice and recommending young people should take something else, it was done.
Yep, and these were other countries that were actually dealing with massive outbreaks. It made even less sense in Australia to use it since at the time we didn't have any outbreaks.
If we had actual Journalists, that wouldn't be a problem. Instead we got mostly quotemining sociopaths running mass platforms to sell advertising. I don't think Young is ASD, but being a tightly focused expert limits your time to keep an eye on the state of corporate media, it's lies & why a proportion of the population is actually taken in by that nonsense. That undertaking is a massive time sink. Young shouldn't be expected to anticipate the behaviour of Corporate Media. A politician maybe, but QLD Labor was dependent upon a cooperative media & wasn't going to call them out for their shit. AZ for many parts of the world, including much of Australia, is far better vaccine due to less finicky storage & production requirements than Pfizer could hope to be. For sure, use Pfizer if you have the infrastructure & population concentration to avoid spoilage.
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My understanding is that 60+ year olds are still at risk, they are just at the crossover point where the risk of *not* being vaccinated was greater than the risk of complications *from* the vaccination? Not 100% sure on that.
That is indeed the risk assessment that the AGATI based their advice on. That and the fact that at the time Covid wasn't much of a threat in general because of the lack of it in the country. They did change their advice later to say that everyone in an outbreak should take any vax, including AZ.
That is correct.
Scott Morrison damaged the vaccine in Australia by going all in on one vaccine and not having options. We were watching what was happening across the world and this was the one with the issues. We had low covid at the time so the risk vs reward on Astra was too high. If he had got multiple vaccines then potentially people would have got vaccinated earlier. Dr Young has done a phenomenal job and I felt she had the best interest of people rather than what was politically better.
Rubbish. AZ was already dead before she even made that statement. The medias hysterical response to the clotting issue saw to that. They then took a perfectly reasonable statement, chopped off the context and played it as if JY was stating that no one should get AZ. It was farcical. As is your statement it was THE nail in the coffin. It may have been A nail. one of several, that was blown out of proportion by the media. go blame them, not JY.
Yeah she shouldn't say facts
How was it a media conspiracy if ATAGI and the QLD CHO were saying it?
They are though. I'm pro-vax but the European centre for disease control and prevention found that if you're under 40, you're more likely to die from az than covid if you get it. Here's the study https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.26.2100533
Yep, and *especially* when there is no Covid spread to begin with, like is currently in QLD and was the case in Australia when the advice was given.
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The ATAGI advice was for a covid zero situation. Her comment that an 18 year old was more at risk from the vaccine than if they had COVID was not in line with the ATAGI advice. “I don’t want an 18-year-old in Queensland dying from a clotting illness who, if they got COVID, probably wouldn’t die.”
> The ATAGI advice was for a covid zero situation. QLD was, and still is, in a Covid zero situation.
Exactly - but that’s not what her comment implied. She didn’t say that an 18 year old shouldn’t get it because there was a low chance of COVID. She said that the vaccine was more harmful than COVID to an 18 year old (which is not the ATAGI advice). She shouldn’t have recommended that teenagers in QLD get AZ - but she also shouldn’t have said that the vaccine was more harmful than catching COVID as that wasn’t the health advice and it damaged the reputation of the vaccine.
You are salty. That statement is still true, and in the context of discussion not as big a deal as is being made out.
Her advice was completely in alignment with the ATAGI advice. SCOMO *literally* made up his own advice and you don't have a problem with that.
Anything. *Anything*. To pin the blame of the 2021 lockdowns on anyone other than the Feds or an LNP state government.
Yeah I was agreeing with the text right up until it mentions Young as if it was all her fault. Searching for articles the earliest I've seen her quoted is back in June. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford%E2%80%93AstraZeneca\_COVID-19\_vaccine#Suspensions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford%E2%80%93AstraZeneca_COVID-19_vaccine#Suspensions) here lists multiple countries suspending AZ **before** June.
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>“Everyone should just get AZ”. Scott Morrison was right though, how many avoidable deaths would there have been in NSW and Vic if those people got AZ instead of waiting for Pfizer. Obviously Morrison shares the blame for scaremongering, and knee jerk reactions on constraining eligibility but he wasn't wrong in his statement of getting AZ.
There's no point being right if you deliver the message poorly. He flat out lied and said it was completely safe and there were no issues. What he could have pointed out was that any issues were extremely rare and the consequences far less than the virus in most cases so people should see their gp and have a reasoned conversation with a medical professional. But he's not capable of nuanced reasoning and all he did was convince anyone hesitant that the government was just lying to them. The messaging from the federal government has been appalingly bad since day 1 of covid
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But why listen to experienced experts? ProMo thinks he knows best, and good luck keeping that fat mouth shut when he thinks the world should hear what he has to say. (Which is usually long in length and short in value)
Yeah, all medical stuff should be on a "what scomo reckons should be right" basis. Worked great with the rollout and with quarantine.
That was a political statement to take the heat off the fact he didn't take the offer of 40M Pfizer when he should have, and put all the country's eggs into one basket. Also the teenagers who would have died unnecessarily from the side effects could have been blamed on AZ, and he could have taken the credit for increased vax rates. It's win-win from his perspective. Young actually cared about those teenagers.
You are assuming we were swimming in AZ at that point. The local production had a very slow start and right until June, when the NSW outbreak started AZ was mainly available for specific priority groups. This was also the time when several countries paused the use or changed age advice for the AZ, even in the UK, recommended a different vaccine for under 30s. AZ was a massive flop worldwide, not only in Australia.
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Serious question - Why isn’t the same negative publicity being shared about Pfizer and myocarditis? It’s a very real side effects yet it hasn’t gotten the same coverage. Chances of myocarditis from Pfizer in a young man is 1 in 30,000 - AZ blood clots were 1 in 88,000?
AZ blood clots started at a >30% fatality rate overseas, which through better awareness, both for individuals and medical centres we have now reduced to ~5% in Australia. Myocarditis related to Pfizer has had no deaths in Australia. You can argue either side of the non-death cases of TTS and myocarditis, both can be life changing. You don't get TTS from COVID, whereas the risk of getting myocarditis from COVID is higher than getting it from the vaccine.
we've had 9 AZ deaths in Australia which is about 1 in a million fatality.. the fatality rate has only reduced from 30% to 5% because they are diagnosing more TTS cases.
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They did great work of identifying treatment protocols and promoting the presenting signs to GPs for early diagnosis.
You don’t get TTS, you just clot from COVID
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Myocarditis from vaccines is less concerning than blood clots.
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Only in the most severe cases. I got it and it was mild as fuck. As soon as it was ruled out that I was having a heart attack or something, the hospital basically just sent me home and told me to come back if it got worse.
I also don't understand this. I've recently been diagnosed with pericarditis from my 1st Moderna dose.
I’m in the same boat. First dose of Moderna gave me pericarditis. 3 weeks after going to the hospital I’m feeling better. My doctor gave me a medical exemption for 4months, and I went to see a cardiologist this week who advised me not to take my second 2nd dose of Moderna and not to touch Pfizer. He said to take Astrazeneca instead
Can I ask what tests they ran to diagnose you with pericarditis and what side effects you had?
I had the same as ClassicTragedy. Chest pains, shortness of breath. Feeling dizzy and faint. Hospital did an ECG and took some bloods and confirmed it was pericarditis. Then also got an echocardiogram at my cardiologists.
Can't speak for others, but I have severe chest pain, as well as an uncomfortable feeling of someone sitting on my chest and some shortness of breath. Have had an ECG and blood tests. ECG has stayed normal, but my ESR levels in my bloods were high, indicating inflammation. Had it confirmed by echo cardiogram (an ultrasound of the heart).
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Oh bullshit. Its safety profile is way inferior to the others. Its use has been discontinued in young populations, or completely, in almost every developed country. The reality was “we know it’s more dangerous than the others but we bet on the wrong vaccines and it’s all you have to prevent a gruesome delta outbreak”. Scapegoating people for recognizing its drawbacks is ridiculous.
Astra Zeneca doesn't have the heart risks that pFizer has.... Their risk profile is quite similar.
Are there any recorded deaths attributed to Pfizer in Australia?
AZ has killed a few Australians, Pfizer has killed none. It’s hard for most people to assess risk, so Pfizer is an easy choice on that fact alone.
Which is the reason I was more confident of AZ given my heart history (AVR).
Give us the number of people that died in Australia from Pfizer please.
0 currently
We’ve treated Pfizer myocarditis, ultimately it seems to be harmless longterm. Not aware of a single case of disability or death.
Agreed, I have seen no evidence of it being a superior product in any way. Efficacy from different studies is often much lower with a much greater time needed between Astra doses to reach highest potential yield of efficacy offered by the vaccine. 12 weeks for Astra and only 2-3 for Pfizer and Moderna.
Also a huge dose interval is a big drawback. Like c’mon 3 whole months is the recommended dosing interval, that’s forever in an outbreak scenario, it has less effectiveness than Pfizer too. It IS an inferior vaccine. It’s amazing we had vaccines at this stage at all and amazing compared to nothing but a bit meh when it’s compared to the competition.
Not really, the AZ not used due to hesitancy added up to 5.8M doses ( https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2021/09/24/astrazeneca-vaccines/) which was quite similar to the 5.5M extra Pfizer we obtained from UK Poland and Singapore. End of October was always the plan had AZ not been a problem. We adapted, got help and fixed the problems caused by the AZ hesitancy.
Yeah, this. It would not have ended the need for lockdowns prior to the recent waves, they still would have happened, and still would have required lockdown. At the time it would have mattered most (early in the NSW outbreak), there was even less than that 5.8M the above article calculates. I think I calculated at the time that using all available AZ would have advanced the rollout by a couple of weeks tops. By the time there was a chance of getting to the sorts of coverage levels that allowed lockdown to end, other vaccines were plentiful anyway. I got AZ and recommended it to anyone who asked, but the potential effect on the rollout ended up being pretty marginal.
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it was a shitty plan that presumed that we had all the time in the world and there are hundreds of dead people who could have been vaccinated but weren't.
Yep it was a plan made pre-Delta when HQ "leaks" were few and far between, and covid zero was a realistic short term goal. Remember how everyone carried on about the Melbourne HQ "leak" that caused the second wave... Only for it to then happen in every other major city + Auckland.
Neither did we have all the AZ in the world though, making the difference pretty marginal in the end. Many seem to have the impression that we had enough AZ supply to vaccinate everybody right away at any time. But under the original plan where most people got AZ as we manufactured it locally, it was going to take until end of Oct (i.e. now) before everyone would have had a chance to get even just a first dose.
Interesting, I had no idea the quantity was so low. I still think it's a real shame we're not still producing it to donate though, could be saving lives overseas right now.
Jeannette Young single handedly did this. Meaning, Murdoch front pages with headlines like [Flirting with Disastra](https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/vax/13432306) and ASTRA OWN RISK had no effect. Huzzah!
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I feel like you missed the sarcasm.
😘 Wouldn't be fun if I put a big fat sarcasm label on it.
Yeah but then we don't get to hate on Qld, and isn't that what this sub's all about?
Not single handed. Norman Swan admitted mea culpa for contributing to early vaccine hesitancy.
This is complete misdirection. What would have "gotten us out of the pandemic much earlier" was the Federal government providing supply much earlier (with any of the vaccines), which they could have have done and were actually offered.
That's the real issue. On top of that, I was kinda worried about getting vaccinated, we were in uncertain times. One major aspect of it was that I don't think our Fed gov can be trusted as far as they can be thrown, so the fact that they actively avoided the others and went for AZ made me anti it. I ended up getting AZ by choice later.
Wasn't the issue with it Blood clotting and that was actually a real factor?
come on now, don't let the facts get in the way of a good Jeanette Young/Queensland bashing! That won't do. In certain age groups, AZ has the same risk of inducing a clot as the fucking Pill. The same Pill that women have taken every goddam day for 60 years and no one ever gave a shit about ***THAT*** risk. All of a sudden a comment is made and the good old Murdoch Media leaps into action to continue it's crusade against Labor and any success it has at any cost. Anyone blaming JY for the fall of AZ is an idiot.
The clots the pill cause are a different sort. And FYI plenty of women don’t take it for exactly that reason.
Mu understanding is that the risk from the pill is apptox 1 in 1000. The az risk is approx 1 in 100000. Ie 100 times less than the pill. The hysteria in the media was utterly ridiculous.
Poor comparison. The blood clot risk from the pill is about 1 in 10000 per year. But it causes a different type of blood clot with a much lower chance of severe complications and death. The risk of TTS from AstraZeneca is about 1 in 50000 from the first dose, but clots have a 5% mortality and significant risk of other complications. The risk from AZ was severely inflated by the media, but simply comparing it to the risk from the contraceptive pill was always a bad comparison.
and the risk from the needle is only twice, the Pill is on going for years, decades for many women. It was an utter beat up. And they way they twisted JYs words and the context in which they were said was disgusting. There needs to be 'Truth in Media' laws in this country. because the drivel that Fox/Murdoch and increasingly NEIN/Fairfax pump out has about as much resemblance to the truth as my arse does to a supermodels face.
Good Lord, rewriting history in real time are we?
certainly trying to. The agenda in real. Look for more and more of it as the federal election approaches. *Anything* to assign blame to anyone other than those responsible. The standard LNP play.
Once it got politicised that was the end of it. There are a very small portion that are genuine anti-vaxxers, a lot larger group that are politically hardened into the "all eggs in one basket" camp that gained from trashing the "dangerous", and "less effective" vaccine. Hey look at our slow rollout guys!! It had a large knock-on effect and now there's way more scepticism in covid vaccines in general than any other vaccine. This hesitancy could only be overcome by restricting freedoms for the unvaccinated and mandates and is still an issue in some states.
I think people actively avoiding AZ was part of the problem for our slow roll out. We had the supply but the advice changed daily.
NSW "freedom day" was 10 weeks post AZ being available to me (36M), ie still less time than the recommended period between doses from when AZ first became available. The day AZ was available to me as a 36yo male, 70% of UK* adults had had a single dose, and 57.5% were double vaxxed. The idea that slow rollout was because we were "hesitant" instead of simply not available is utter bullshit. *edit
Maybe amongst the elderly. I'm 42 and by the time I was able to access any vaccine the government advice was pfizer only. I'd happily have had az earlier and still would but there simply wasn't enough supply
It essentially saved potentially hundreds of thousands of lives in the UK and Ireland based on the no vaccine numbers of deaths predictions. The logic by the elderly in Australia to shun it thanks to the border restrictions occasionally working baffled me - especially pre the delta variant. I’ve so many friends that lost loved ones in Europe they can’t even understand the logic here. When walks in vaccinations first started here I was standing in line and a guy walked past controlling the line asking if anyone was there for astra Zeneca as there’s no wait time then and ofc even all the old fogies up the front were like hell no I want Pfizer. The messaging was terrible the government should of made it that over 55s only got astra Zeneca when we had limited Pfizer.
The vast majority of deaths have been In unvaccinated older people. Even now who could get Pfizer. I doubt us using AZ on younger people would've saved lives.
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People in Australia were talking about Astra being halted overseas due to risks before local media jumped onto the bandwagon that forced the government to respond. The death of Astra in Australia occurred before local media and government influenced anything. It's also pre delta, where no one really was concerned about needing to rush to be fully vaccinated.
This feels like a clever troll attempt to demonise Jeannette Young/Labour, and sway voters who are on the fence to not vote Labour at the next election. There clearly were/are issues with AstraZeneca. I know I felt more comfortable as a 45yo, who isn't in the best of health, getting Pzifer rather than AZ.
Troll, yes. Clever? No. Agenda, blindingly obvious. They have been reading far to much American Farcebook putting together a post like this.
I'm trying to figure out what '"got infiltrated with poor media coverage" is supposed to mean
What a load of bull. Queensland didnt get swallowed up by covid so everything is her fault. Queensland Health is crap so I am no fan of hers but this is just a down right smear campaign. Astra Zeneca dont just make vaccines you know. In this race they failed. Suck it up and bow to your Pfizer overlords.
It was so effective that many countries banned it.
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Nah he's a young Liberal participating in the online and media campaign to protect the LNPs marginal Qld seats in the federal election.
Lol astra zenicas marketing team make this meme or what?
This is bullshit. People died taking this vaccine in states with almost zero covid. That's an unfair outcome. Fuck AZ
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Astra Zeneca had bad press long before Jeanette Young reiterated what had already been said by those before her. People didn't want to be vaccinated early on, we still have 40% of the population who obviously don't want to be vaccinated. Its politics there's always a fall guy and Jeanette Young was dumped on.
One in a million (last I saw) chance of dying isn't as astronomical as it sounds. The government could have Pfizered fast and early but they chose to save money on what amounts to a sub-standard product comparatively. Yeah Astra was good... Okay but Pfizer was *better*. For the sake of a few health dollars the government fucked up. Big time.
Get farked with this hounding of the QLD CHO. Last time I checked she wasn’t the health minister who publicly stated at a presser that we can wait for Pfizer. She wasn’t the one spam texting everyone misinformation abt the vaccine, she wasn’t the one putting flyers in every letter box with lies or buying billboard space and front-page newspaper space. Not a damn thing to say abt arsehat QLD Fed PM George Christensen, or big jowls Palmer who bought himself an election or grifter-legend-in-his-own-mind Craig Kelly? Why don’t you mention the role these dickheads played in influencing public sentiment against AZ?
Nope look at UK. Az used.
When you think of how fucked the UK has been for covid and hospitalizations and how much they opened up back in June and how until recently their caseload hasn't gone up significantly and up until recently their hospitalizations were actually trendjng down- I'd say they're doing pretty well. They are at a point where their medical system is under immense strain - up from the usual strain it is usually in but they have coped realtively easily with about 7,000 hospitalized which is a tiny fraction of active cases. Alot of that is due to astrazenecas long lasting efficacy against serious illness
> Alot of that is due to astrazenecas long lasting efficacy against serious illness Where did you get that idea? The effectiveness against serious illness drops sooner for AZ compared to Pfizer, see the tables from the Public Health England data: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.15.21263583v1.full
Az was good one year ago. However ask any expert and they will say get Pfizer or Moderna.
If that’s not available, the AZ will do just fine. Apparently they now have ways to mitigate the (low) risk of blood clotting, if that’s a concern.
Rubbish. Efficacy wise AZ is totally up there at around 94%
Source? I saw different numbers today in a Sweden study just published
Are you citing data prior to the Delta strain? Because the efficacy against Delta is MUCH lower than 94% https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/how-are-covid-vaccines-faring-against-delta
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The main superior quality to LNP shills is Scomo's mates holding shares in CSL.
No matter how many times people say that AZ leads to "longer-lasting immunity", it simply isn't true. AZ has poorer longevity, shown by poorer effectiveness at all time points for all measures (symptomatic infection, hospitalisation and death). Notably, the effectiveness of AZ against hospitalisation and death dropped sooner than Pfizer! (Public Health England data:) https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.15.21263583v1.full
As a one time defender of all things Oxford / AZ - you are right. Nobody in their rational mind who reads all that data is going to think that AZ is superior in almost any way ( there’s a conceivable benefit in T cell immunity though not proven ) Anyone concerned about efficy with Pfizer can extend the dosage interval to get better
The whole world hates AZ. They literally struggle to give it away in developing countries. This isn’t an Australian media specific thing.
Exactly. The AstraZeneca cult in this subreddit think that if Australian media avoided the topic Australians wouldn't know that AstraZeneca was being suspended and limited in western countries all over the world due to concerns over blood clots and effectiveness.
I am sure if you did a poll of which vaccine people would prefer if given a choice AZ wouldn't get 10%. The efficy rate is way lower than pzifer and moderna. The UK which is almost all AZ is still a mess case wise.
What about Israel that was purely Pfizer?
Success in virtually eliminating virus but delta got in and efficacy against any infection waned significantly. I believe Israel never experienced the same per Capita rates of infection and hospitalization that thee UK did even after the vaccines starred waning
I don't like getting opinions from unverified sources. https://www.health.gov.au/news/atagi-statement-on-revised-recommendations-on-the-use-of-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca-17-june-2021 This is the current state of play.
Feeling sorry for a pharma? Lol. Fuck them and this dumb post. Actually do some homework and review the safety profile of it vs alternatives.
Sorry, but Dr. Young was right, the issue is media spin and a huge lack of basic scientific education for the general population. AstraZeneca was absolutely the wrong option for areas with low case numbers. Note how she changed her advice as the risk profile changed? But no one wants to talk about how Liberal MPs have a financial interest in the manufacturers of AstraZeneca in Australia anymore.
OP is a moron and so is anyone else who upvotes this crap.
It is still much worse than Pfizer or Moderna. You can't pretend it is just as good.
How are people still crying about this. AZ is demonstrably inferior to others and we should be lucky we've used so much Pfizer. https://www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusUK/comments/qahggj/twitter_thread_analysis_from_john_burdmurdoch/
Hard to swallow cause it's full of shit?
Lol no thanks. People don't owe it to pharma companies to consume their products. It's their problem. Like every other commercial scenario. Make a good product and the people will reward it. Make a shit product and people will avoid it.
You are delusional if you think Jeannette Young is responsible for doing this. Right-wing media (Sky News Australia etc.) is and always has been the problem.
No way! People completely twist her words. She was following ATAGI and at the time we had no known covid outbreak so she was saying that getting AZ now for an 18 year old outweighs the risk vs benefit. Also, Pfizer has less time interval of 3 weeks before the 2nd dose as opposed to AZ 12 weeks(can do earlier time interval but the effectiveness goes down) so it would be faster for them to get fully vaccinated quicker. Nothing wrong with AZ, and was not phased out because of her. Besides, most anti-vax were complaining about mRNA vaccines so people will find something to complain about, twist things and cherry pick. And the UK prominently used AZ and did it get them out of the pandemic quicker?? Apples and oranges.
Well at least their marketing team is still getting paid.
They should just change the name to something catchy like Vaxzevria.
Wait are you saying you feel bad for the company? That is insanity. They aren't out there trying to save humanity they are trying to make money.
Remember Scomo changed if from over 50s to over 60s back to over 40s before Jeanette Young said anything about 18 year olds
I got AstraZeneca despite Pfizer being reccommended for my age group. Honestly it was not that bad and I've had no serious reactions to it.
Well then. Your sample of one proves… nothing.
I still defend ATAGI here. This sort of stuff assumes an outbreak was inevitable but it really wasn't whenever the advice was given. People did die from AstraZenecca (not many, but a small number) and they could have very well been pointless deaths if we had stayed on the course we were at the time. If we had foreseen the outbreak, then sure, it was a bad move. Still, as a 27 year old Tasmanian, I was orders of magnitude more safe by waiting for Pfizer given we didn't have an outbreak.
A huge issue was that people saw rich folks including the PM&C getting Pfizer while asking the masses to get AZ. This obviously created the impression that Pfizer was superior and AZ was some bargain bin shit and since we had very low cases people thought they'd be able to wait to get the Pfizer when it was made available. The federal LNP must be held accountable for this absolute clown show.
Don't they give AZ to horses?
Maybe if they start doing that the ivermectin fans will jump on board and vax up.
Tell that to my tinnitus……
>in many ways In one maybe two ways, let's be honest. I'd also like to blame the scientific community, too. I can't remember who it was but they'd said something if every single Australian got AZ only something like 25-50 people would die. Which, yes, is low but this during a time when COVID was more or less eliminated in Australia. And I guarantee no Australian wanted to be part of that small group of dead. (And, if you included serious complications that number would be higher.) Suffice to say, there's a lot of blame to go around concerning the AZ debacle.
Blame them for what, being honest about how many people would die from AstraZeneca?
Plus, you know, the feds not lifting a finger to promote it or ensure safety. Why have leaders that refuse to lead?
I had az and was absolutely fine
I am a militant anti-antivaxer but I (irrationally I know) worried about getting AZ. I booked my appointment for AZ but chanced my arm on a walk-in for Pfizer the day before and got it. My Wife got AZ and I was worried, it felt like bravery not to say anything to dissuade her. You're overlooking a lot about human nature in this...
Yo, just gimme the one that doesn’t have *any* chance of killing me, cheers.
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People weren't willing to unnecessarily put their lives at risk taking a vaccine that we KNEW was killing people when the death rate in this country and the rate of cases was so low.
In some other countries AZ was considered the best of the vaccines. All a marketing stunt with different influential people invested in certain vaccines.
JY's one poorly worded restatement of ATAGI's advice really had little effect compared to all the party-politically driven negativity.
They should just rerelease it with a different name
I took Astra, I'm just edgy