Category: Australasia
Australasian Coronavirus News
BMJ: cerebral venous thrombosis about 20 times more common after AstraZeneca vaccine
The risk of thrombosis at 11 excess events per 100 000 vaccinations are higher than estimated by the European Medicines Agency. The EMA estimates the risk of thrombosis to be between 1 and 2 per 100 000 people, depending on age. Among the venous thromboembolic events, the most notable was cerebral venous thrombosis, which was about 20 times more common after the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine than expected with an excess risk of 2.5 per 100 000 vaccinations. Venous thromboembolic events were more common in women than in men and were also more common in people aged 18-44 than in those aged 45-65. Thrombocytopenia and bleeding were mildly increased after vaccination, but not significantly.
BMJ Opinion – Thrombosis and bleeding after the Oxford-AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccination
Study Paper here: Arterial events, venous thromboembolism, thrombocytopenia, and bleeding after vaccination with Oxford-AstraZeneca ChAdOx1-S in Denmark and Norway: population based cohort study
UK: AstraZeneca #coronavirus vaccine blood clot cases double to 168 in two weeks, 32 deaths reported
WHO: B.1.617 Indian #coronavirus strain is now a Variant of Concern or VOC
A World Health Organization official said Monday it is reclassifying the Indian Sars-Cov-2 variant B.1.617 as a “variant of concern,” indicating that it’s become a global health threat. Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead for Covid-19, said the agency will provide more details in its weekly situation report on the pandemic Tuesday but added that the variant, known as B.1.617, has been found in preliminary studies to spread more easily than the original virus and there is some evidence it may able to evade vaccines.
“as such we are classifying this as a variant of concern at the global level,” she said during a press conference. “Even though there is increased transmissibility demonstrated by some preliminary studies, we need much more information about this virus variant in this lineage in all of the sub lineages, so we need more sequencing, targeted sequencing to be done.”
Gamaleya Institute: ‘The next stage of the epidemic is the infection with the #coronavirus of farm and domestic animals’
Alexander Gintsburg, head of the Gamaleya institute that developed Russia’s Sputnik V human vaccine, was quoted in Izvestia newspaper as saying COVID-19 was likely to hit animals next. “The next stage of the epidemic is the infection with the coronavirus of farm and domestic animals,” Gintsburg said.
Russia has produced the world’s first batch – 17,000 doses – of COVID-19 vaccines for animals, its agricultural regulator said on Friday. Russia registered Carnivac-Cov in March after tests showed it generated antibodies against COVID-19 in dogs, cats, foxes and mink.
Global: Sars-COV-2 – a virus that oscillates between killing 5,000 to 20,000 a day for an entire year?
How is this graph even possible? For more than one year the global death toll for Sars-Cov-2 has oscillated between ~5,000 deaths a day to ~20,000 deaths a day creating a pattern that is almost ECG like in its uniformity. Answers on a postcard please, because we do not see anything natural about this graph.
Graph courtesy of OurWorldinData.org
Australia: Victoria shuts border to Perth, hundreds in #coronavirus isolation
Victoria, Australia has closed its border to Perth residents after a passenger infected with coronavirus landed at Melbourne Airport. The man caught the virus at a quarantine hotel in Perth after being in China and then flew to Melbourne without knowing he was a carrier.
On Friday night the case plunged Perth into a three-day lockdown after it was revealed the man had moved around the city for four days. The man who arrived is Victoria’s first community case of COVID-19 in eight weeks. All 257 passengers aboard the April 21 flight QF778 have been ordered to get tested and to isolate for 14 days.
Image by David Mark from Pixabay
New Zealand: fully vaccinated airport worker tests positive for #coronavirus
The Auckland Airport worker who has tested positive for Covid-19 cleans planes from high risk Covid-19 ‘red-zone countries’, and had been fully vaccinated, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says. They were fully vaccinated early on in the campaign and were last tested on 12 and 19 April, she said. Yesterday’s test returned a positive result today.
“The reason this person was part of our surveillance testing was because they were working in an area we consider to be high-risk. They are coming in contact with the planes that are carrying passengers from high risk countries and so that is a place where our workers, they are in the kinds of roles that means they need to be tested, they need to be vaccinated, but they also need to be thanked for the jobs that they do because of the risk that it carries.”
Image by Hands off my tags! Michael Gaida from Pixabay
Australia: First fatal case of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia is likely to be linked to AstraZeneca #coronavirus vaccination
The TGA’s Vaccine Safety Investigation Group (VSIG) met late today and concluded that a recently reported case of thrombosis (blood clots in the arteries and veins) with thrombocytopenia (low platelet count) is likely to be linked to vaccination. VSIG reviewed a report about a 48-year-old woman who was vaccinated in New South Wales and admitted to hospital with an extensive thromboembolic event and thrombocytopenia (TTS) four days after receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine. Sadly, this person Genene Norris died in hospital and we extend our sincerest condolences to her family.
RIP Genene Norris
Image by Monika Häfliger from Pixabay
Australia: 48yr old NSW woman dies after developing blood clots following Covid-19 vaccination
Australian Federal health authorities are investigating the death of a 48-year-old New South Wales woman who developed blood clots after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. If it is confirmed the woman contracted blood clots linked to a COVID-19 vaccine, it would be the third such case in Australia since the rollout began.
See also: Australia: second likely AstraZeneca #coronavirus vaccine blood clot case
Image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay
Australia: second likely AstraZeneca #coronavirus vaccine blood clot case
The second case of rare blood clots linked to the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine has been detected in a woman vaccinated in Western Australia. The Therapeutic Goods Administration said the woman in her 40s is in hospital in a stable condition, receiving treatment.
“The Vaccine Safety Investigation Group (VSIG), a panel of expert advisers to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) met yesterday evening and has concluded that a recently reported case of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia is likely to be linked to vaccination,” the TGA said in a safety alert.
This is the second Australian case of “thrombosis with thrombocytopenia following the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine”.
Image by Patty Jansen from Pixabay
Boris Johnson: “many more people will lose loved ones to #coronavirus”
12th March 2020 – Boris Johnson: “many more people will lose loved ones to coronavirus” (Guardian).
13th April 2021 – Boris Johnson: “sadly we will see more hospitalisation and deaths” (Guardian)
16th December 2020: Jacinda Ardern reveals the moment she chose her Covid-19 elimination strategy for New Zealand
Australia: Pfizer is now the preferred #coronavirus vaccine for people aged under 50
Pfizer is now the preferred vaccine for people aged under 50, Australia’s medical experts have decided after a lengthy meeting to discuss a rare but serious blood clotting side effect linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The government is now reviewing Australia’s vaccine portfolio as the entire rollout will require an overhaul, throwing the timeline of the country’s vaccination program into doubt. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the advice was not a prohibition on the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in people aged under 50.
Image by Patty Jansen from Pixabay
More than 700,000 AstraZeneca #coronavirus vaccine doses secretly flown to Australia from Britain
Hundreds of thousands of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been flown from the United Kingdom to Australia but the source of the shipments was kept quiet to avoid any controversy in coronavirus-ravaged Britain.
The first 300,000 UK-made doses landed at Sydney Airport on February 28 – one month after the European Commission introduced new curbs limiting the export of vaccines produced on the Continent. Another large batch arrived on an Emirates passenger plane in March, well after Italy and the European Commission formally blocked an application by AstraZeneca to ship 250,000 doses to Australia.
Australia reports first case of blood clots following AstraZeneca #coronavirus vaccination
Australia’s medical authorities are monitoring the first reported case of a rare clotting disorder following a COVID-19 jab.
A 44-year-old man was admitted to Box Hill Hospital in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs on Friday for blood clots. The man was vaccinated around March 22 and, so far, no direct link has been discovered between his condition and his vaccination. To date more than 420,000 people have received AstraZeneca vaccinations in Australia.
Image by Paul Macallan from Pixabay