Most people will be aware that Australia’s rollout of coronavirus vaccines is being threatened by a dangerous clot. But it’s not just Greg Hunt. As well as the Health Minister there are a number of other problems, including a second, worrying clot.
Of course, ScoMoFo and his team of incompetent goons have screwed up Australia’s vaccination program, and of course they’re too busy image-managing and blame-shifting to work to fix it up. But there is also a serious question about the AstraZeneca vaccine and the prevalence of dangerous blood-clotting.
In brief, is the AstraZeneca vaccine sufficiently safe to warrant its use? How likely is the vaccine to protect a person, and protect them from what? What are the dangers of the vaccine, how likely are the dangers to eventuate, and how dangerous are the dangers?
We’re open-minded on the question, we haven’t looked hard for trustworthy answers, and we’d appreciate it if anyone can point us to reasonable and reliable evidence. We’ll happily work to digest any good-faith analyses, and will look to write about it in future posts. It would not surprise us if we ended up being convinced that the AstraZeneca vaccine, although not without significant risks, is worth the risks. But, as it stands, we’re not convinced.
One thing that does absolutely nothing to convince us that the AstraZeneca vaccine is sufficiently safe is pronouncements from ScoMoFo and GregHunt that the vaccine is sufficiently safe. Declarations from these self-interested con men, on anything, are worthless. We are also not at all comforted by government apparatchik’s chanting “no proven link”, as if some formal proof of a link rather than statistical evidence is the critical issue right now. All these people may be telling the truth, but they are so heavily invested in manipulation and crowd management that it is impossible to tell.
We look forward to reading, and writing upon, whatever non-crazy material is thrown our way.