The AstraZeneca vaccine has made the news recently, as several European countries have halted its rollout temporarily due to reports of blood clots. These issues are real, but it’s important to look at how many incidences of this issue there are, and how that compares to other vaccines. It turns out that not only is the incidence of reported clotting similar to that seen with other COVID vaccines, but it’s also similar to what you’d expect from a population that haven’t received any medical interventions. Both deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism levels for the millions of people who have taken the vaccine are about what would be expected of a random selection of people in their day to day lives. Sadly some people just get blood clots at times, and people can have exacerbating medical conditions that mean they’re more susceptible to this issue.

The worry here is that, although it’s understandable for health agencies to be cautious, jumping to a conclusion before even performing a basic check of the data and taking the serious step of halting a vaccine rollout is likely to have one serious repercussion. It’s likely to damage the public’s confidence in vaccination.