Weight of opinion sways youthful take-up of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine

Thousands of young people in Sydney have weighed up the pros and cons of the AstraZeneca vaccine and decided the benefits outweigh the risks.

Soriah Lambrousis, 28, receives the AstraZeneca vaccine from pharmacist Nadeem Ahmad in Liverpool, south-west Sydney, on Wednesday. Picture: John Feder

Thousands of young people in Sydney have weighed up the pros and cons of the AstraZeneca vaccine and decided the same thing as the nation’s top vaccine advisers: with the Delta strain spreading, the benefits outweigh the risks.

The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation updated its advice last week in light of the surging Covid-19 outbreak in the city and the dangers associated with the Delta variant, urging all adults in Greater Sydney to strongly consider getting vaccinated with any available vaccine, including AstraZeneca.

“The outbreak in NSW continues to grow and the risk of ­disease, particularly in the Greater Sydney area, is likely to continue to be significant over coming weeks,” ATAGI said. “In a large outbreak, the benefits of the Covid-19 vaccine Astra­Zeneca are greater than the risk of rare side effects for all age groups.”

Maximal protection requires two doses of vaccine, but even a single dose of either vaccine provides substantial protection (by more than 70 per cent) against hospitalisation.

ATAGI also reiterated its recommendation for a shorter interval of 4-8 weeks between the first and second doses of AstraZeneca because of the severity of the Sydney outbreak, rather than the routine 12-week interval.

According to ATAGI, about three people aged under 50 are likely to suffer a rare blood clotting disorder out of every 100,000 who receive a first dose of AstraZeneca vaccine.

Out of every 25 cases of the condition known as thrombosis with thrombocytopenia (TTS), there is likely to be one death, based on Australia data.

 

In the UK, in terms of the number of blood clots recorded versus vaccines given in young people, there have been 10.1 cases of blood clots per million doses given in 40- to 49-year-olds, and 17.4 cases per million doses, or one in 60,000, among those aged 30 to 39.

Respiratory physician Christine Jenkins, the head of the respiratory group at The George Institute for Global Health Sydney, said young people needed to consider a wide array of benefits of getting the AstraZeneca jab against the blood clot risk.

“This risk analysis would compare the risk of transmission, getting the disease at all, losing time from work and infecting your family and friends to risk of TTS. These are far more likely events than ICU admission, which is rare and an uncommon event for ­people under 50 years old.”

She said young people should consider whether they wanted to be exposed to Covid-19 at all.

“Do young people want to be exposed to viral illness risk at all, not just ICU admission, but days of feeling very unwell, time off work sick, risk of long Covid? … Do they want to risk transmitting it to their parents, many of whom are older and have chronic diseases that make them very vulnerable to … ICU admission and death? If the answer is no, young people should get vaccinated and if the AstraZeneca vaccine is the only one they can get now, then they should go for it.”