Emrullah Yiğit

Mehmet Efe Zengin

 

 

The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is suspected of being linked to a small number of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) cases, which recently emerged within Europe as millions of people received vaccinations. This led several countries to suspend AstraZeneca injections and investigate the causal links to DVT. Researchers within Europe teamed up to explore a hypothesis that pausing AstraZeneca vaccinations, even for a short duration, could cause additional deaths from the faster spread of COVID-19 within a population of susceptible individuals. In Chaos, researchers report using an epidemiological susceptible-exposed-infected-recovered model and statistical analysis of publicly available data to estimate excess deaths resulting from suspending AstraZeneca vaccinations and those potentially linked to DVT-adverse events in France and Italy.

 

They concluded the benefits of deploying the AstraZeneca vaccine greatly outweigh its associated risks, and relative benefits are wider in situations where the reproduction number is larger. The group compares the excess deaths due to temporal restriction of the AstraZeneca vaccine's deployment and excess deaths due to its possible side effects. The group analyzed the case of resuming vaccinations at a doubled rate for the same number of days as the vaccination interruption. "Excess deaths are still on the same order of magnitude as those observed by resuming vaccinations at the same rate as before the interruption but scaled down by a factor of two," said Faranda.

 

A first proof of the validity of their estimates is the report of seven DVT deaths per 18 million vaccinations within the U. K, a value that is in line with the group's work based on data available a few weeks ago and assuming a standard fatality rate of DVT from AstraZeneca vaccinations.

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References

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staff, Science X. “Benefits of AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine Outweigh Its Risks, Modeling Study Suggests.” Phys.org, Phys.org, 27 Apr. 2021, phys.org/news/2021-04-benefits-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-outweigh.html. 

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Figure References

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BBC News Türkçe. “Covid aşısı: Oxford-AstraZeneca aşısı ABD'de güvenli bulundu”. 22th March 2021. Web. https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler-dunya-56484726