Brutal: due to 23 deaths shortly after vaccinating with Pfizer's mRNA vaccine - out of 25,000 who have received the first dose - Norwegian authorities are now recommending that the very old and frail don't get vaccinated.
Looks like the notoriously severe side effects may be bad enough to kill some people. Ugly trade-off, because COVID-19 is also quite deadly in the age group.
Depending on how this goes, might lead to mandatory vaccination for the younger population.
https://trondheim24.no/nyheter/legemiddelverket-har-sett-pa-13-dodsfall-i-etterkant-av-vaksinasjon/
@pete it sounds like there’s not much point in vaccination unless they can confirm it’s effect in preventing transmission — I’d say it’s very likely to reduce it, but I hear nobody actually has studied that
@lucash_dev I mean, if the trial data is correct, it reduces symptoms, and we're pretty sure now that asymptomatic transmission is much less likely than symptomatic spread. So on that basis it's a good bet that it prevents transmission.
Problem is, if ADE is happening, it may not prevent severe illness and death. :/ The trial just didn't get enough data to really know what it did for severe cases.
@lucash_dev UAE specifically was also using the Chinese vaccine prior to Pfizer, so possibly there is some interaction with people getting both.
Not something I can determine - the medical experts will have to look into this in detail. Hopefully they do...