Does the Astra Zeneca vaccine work?

Yes I think it works, the hospital admissions are way down here in Scotland and everyone I know has had the AZ one. There are rising cases of the Delta variants here and the hospitals are OK.

CHO of QLD, Jeanette Young has had her first dose of AZ!!

?

I find my own situation quite strange. I have had both jabs - Phizer but cannot have a flu jab. I hoping that may change. My close family and friends have had a mixture of AZ and Phizer. OH may have had one of the doses that is not recommended for travel but I will check that. I am immuno suppressed so have been pleased to read that it is effective in producing antibodies. I cannot wait for my life to return to normal

I have no idea but happy to take the vaccine just incase .

It's such a shame about the side effects though- long term this vaccine is going to have to give way to safer ones. I only mind because it's UK based & it's hard luck for us - no way of knowing till it's used en masse - but until the world is vaccinated, there's a place for it certainly. It works better than the flu vaccine and you wouldn't think you'd wasted your time having that?

Alegrias1

Of course it works. (I deleted the swear word)

I don't know what Dame Sarah Gilbert thinks of all this, all that effort she and her team put in to have a vaccine that is over 90% effective and people are saying "oh it doesn't work"

I used the screenshot rather than go to the PHE source data because this is clearer. I think Casdon is more conciliatory than me

Well said, Alegrias.

There is an interview with Sarah Gilbert and Catherine Green in the Observer today. They talk about how their vaccine has been treated as a political football, and about their being very worried that if we don’t get vaccines around the rest of the world quickly, there’ll be the opportunity for new variants to emerge that will be even more difficult to deal with.

The poorest countries can’t be blamed for low vaccine rates, but I’m astonished that despite his best efforts (including hanging on a phone line at midnight when the few available vaccine appointments became available), my 72 year old friend in Japan hasn’t had his first jab offered yet. And the Olympics starts in a couple of weeks.

Personally I’d rather have it than take a chance without it. As a point of interest does the flu jab always work? I guess not but it may minimise the effects and it will be the same with any Covid-19 jab.

Where are you? I think people are saying that the vaccine doesn’t work no nothing about drug trials at all. They wouldn’t put a drug out that was deemed to be dangerous or didn’t work because could you imagine the lawsuits they would have on their hands. It’s conspiracy theories like this that’s going to keep this virus is alive and well and killing people.

orly

70 and only just getting the second dose?!?!?! That's why we left the EU.

That isn’t correct. We were still technically in the EU when the vaccination programme started here and every EU country had control over it’s own vaccination programme.

If we all listened to rumours we would never leave our homes. I’d say listen to medical advice and not here say. The quicker you all get your jabs the quicker we can get to a near normal life back. Or how about pink donuts in the sky so rumour has it ?

orly

70 and only just getting the second dose?!?!?! That's why we left the EU.

I just got my first shot June 30. Second will be in a month. Not UK.

Nanna8 can I ask where in the world you are ? It sounds a# if some of the negativity around you has rubbed off but thank goodness you have been able to have both your jabs.

Yes it does. All uk family have had AZ and family in Alberta, grandchildren aged 12,14.17 as well.

The Covid-19 risk is far worse think how vaccines have almost banished TB, Polio etc.

DD2 in Australia has told me, last week, Scott Morrison said the AZ should now be given to anyone who wants it. Chief Health Officer of QLD, Jeanette Young told him and the press this was wrong advice due to the risks of blood clots.

DD and SiL have had both doses of Pfizer I am relieved to know.

70 and only just getting the second dose?!?!?! That's why we left the EU.

Yes, it is effective. Angela Merkel has AZ as her first shot, and I can’t for one minute imagine that anyone would give her something ineffective!

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57571791.amp

I am part of a trial by Office for National Statistics and do regular swabs for them and have agreed to do so for at least a year more. Part of the test is checking antibodies. The swab and antibody results are used by the government to help them make the decisions with the scientific experts. I am always told my swab results but not the antibody results.

What a question! Are we so down a conspiracy worm hole that we no longer trust Googling a scientific website or journal but think social media has the answer?????

There have been problems with the Pfizer vaccine too - as it has caused allergic reactions in some people. As I have suffered an anaphylactic shock in the past resulting in 5 days in hospital and just about making it through, I was strongly advised to have the Astra Zenica one - which I did - so far so good.

Dont listen to antivacc scaremongers, of course it works.There arent as many people who have had Astra vaccine who have had problems with their blood either, as people have suggested.
Lets get everyone vaccinated and get rid of this virus.
I have been giving jabs to people for ages and most people are very grateful to have received them.

FlexibleFriend I wish some could read your post to show how they are checking some people for antibodies.
I've had my 2 AZ jabs and will go for my booster when called. The newspapers have a lot to answer for, for the usual scaremongering they spout. People can just decide for themselves, we are not all idiots.

From the outset I believed that much of the negative press re: AZ was driven by the fact that it is produced at cost. Big pharma companies won’t have been impressed by this, as they are used to making big profits, so it follows that anything interfering with this was never going to be viewed in a positive light. There will always be side effects associated with any medication, sadly.
I’m extremely grateful to have both AZ jabs and will forever be amazed at the teams that developed it so quickly.

Wilma Go to this site: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274. Scroll through to towards the end. Compare the graphs of case and hospitalisations over the last three months and over the whole pandemic and then come back and tell us what the difference is between last July and last week and to what you would attribute the change, if there is any.

grandtanteJE65

Neither the medical control board, not the state immunology dept. in Denmark has said that the Astra Zeneca vaccine doesn't work.

What they and other countries have said is that they were withdrawing it because the risk of death due to coronary thrombrosis as a side effect of the vaccine was too high to be acceptable.

I realise that a lot of people do not agree with this evaluation, but that is their priveledge, but no-one has doubted that the vaccine works.

There may now be some doubt as to whether any vaccine works against the newer mutations of the virus, but again this may just be scare-mongering.

There is no doubt that the vaccines work against new variants.

Just saying that there is, is enough to sow doubt in people's minds and so its not just an off hand remark. Did anybody see the comment from Cath Green, colleague of Sarah Gilbert?

The good news is that we also think it is unlikely that the virus can mutate in a way that keeps it functioning but makes our vaccine completely ineffective.
That's because a change in the spike protein – which allows the coronavirus to enter and infect human cells – that is radical enough to make our vaccine completely ineffective would also, almost certainly, be so extreme as to make the virus non-functional.