Lucy Carne: AstraZeneca vaccine has been unfairly vilified and politicised

If we are to vaccinate 80 per cent of Australians, we need to urgently address the smear campaign against the AstraZeneca vaccine, writes Lucy Carne.

Turns out, it is a race.

The Prime Minister on Friday night laid out clear goals for Australia to get through the pandemic as a “team effort”.

And it sets a high bar for a further 10.7 million Aussies to get fully vaccinated.

With Sydney still struggling in the grip of their Delta outbreak and Brisbane in yet another short lockdown, it’s clear that any hopes of eradicating the virus are impossible. We have to equip ourselves to live with it.

But as the PM warned after National Cabinet, until more people get vaccinated, we face months of painful lockdowns, bringing with them their insidious economic and mental health damage.

The race is on. And if America had Operation Warp Speed to push out their vaccine program, we need Dean Boxall.

It’s impossible not to be motivated by the Australian Olympic swimming coach madly screaming at us to surge forward with vaccinations.

But if we are seriously to accomplish vaccinating 80 per cent of adults, the number one weapon in this fight is to urgently address the deliberate trashing of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

It’s been politicised and vilified by outrageous claims.

First it was “ineffective” on the elderly, which was quickly disproved. Two shots of AstraZeneca are about 92 per cent effective against hospitalisation from the Delta variant, according to a Public Health England analysis of 14,000 cases.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison encouraged under 40s to have AstraZeneca. Picture: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Australian Medical Association President Dr Omar Khorshid said last week that “even one dose of AstraZeneca can cut the risks of hospitalisation from Covid-19 by 70 per cent and halve the risks of passing the virus to someone else”.

Then came the clots. Combined with a condition called thrombocytopenia, which involves abnormally low levels of platelets, the extremely rare cerebral venous sinus thrombosis prevents blood draining from the brain.

Out of more than 11 million AstraZeneca vaccines administered so far, there have been six Australians deaths (five clots and one case of immune thrombocytopenia), according to the TGA.

The risk of dying from a clot after an AstraZeneca vaccine is one in about two million. To put that into perspective, the risk of dying as a healthy person on the operating table under anaesthetic is about one in 100,000.

But the needle and the damage has been done (apologies to Neil Young).

Confidence has been dented. Vaccine elitism is rampant. AstraZeneca has been wielded as a fearmongering tool to distract from any failures with the hotel quarantine program.

Queensland chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young fuelled fears when she said she did not want under-40s getting AstraZeneca.

“I don’t want an 18-year-old in Queensland dying from a clotting illness who, if they got Covid, probably wouldn’t die,” she said.

Queensland chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young. Picture: NCA NewsWire / John Gass

She even now refuses to budge on her statement. This is despite the European Medicines Agency definitively ruling the vaccine is effective and safe. A study of 1.3 million Spanish people, pre-released in The Lancet last week, also found patients were more likely to develop blood clots from Covid-19 than vaccines.

“In this study we have found the safety profiles of ChAdOx1 (AstraZeneca) and BNT162b2 (Pfizer), an mRNA-based vaccine, to be broadly similar,” the paper reads.

It certainly also doesn’t help vaccine hesitancy when politician’s eligible for AstraZeneca, are opting for Pfizer instead.

Some doctors have reported they are throwing away jabs as so many people prefer Pfizer.

University of Oxford Professor Sarah Gilbert (seated in red, bottom right) one of the scientists behind the AstraZeneca vaccine, receives a spontaneous standing ovation at Wimbledon. Picture: AELTC/Joe Toth-Pool/Getty Images

More than 46 million people in the UK have been vaccinated and AstraZeneca scientist Dame Sarah Gilbert received a standing ovation at Wimbledon. Could you imagine how she would have been received at the Broncos’ game at Suncorp Stadium?

Back in the doughnut days of March (before we were yet to be acquainted with Delta), Gold Coast infectious disease expert Dr John Gerrard ominously told this paper that it would be a disaster if people did not get their vaccine.

“It’s vital, the vaccine is saving lives and protecting us if there is a return of the virus,” he said.

“The community must play a part in protecting themselves and others. Most credible experts from around the world believe we will not eliminate this virus so we need to be prepared and protected.”

His predictions sadly came true. The virus is with us in the form of a variant described by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as being as contagious as chickenpox. Now the only way we can attempt to move forward, as other nations have done, is to get vaccinated.

To do that we must tackle the toxic AstraZenecism that is perpetuating vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaxxer fake news.

Stop politicising a vaccine and put the risk into perspective for the public. The alternative is not worth thinking about.