Whether a particular Covid-19 vaccine is considered safe for you can depend on what country you live in.
There are a myriad of conflicting assessments among nations when it comes to which vaccines are safe for whom, when, and how they should be administered.
For example, in Spain, the AstraZeneca shot has been restricted to people over age 60 due to reports of blood clots in younger people.
But a lot of younger people had already gotten dose one of the vaccine and the question is: should they get dose two?
To buy time to help answer that question, Spanish health authorities are now widening the time period between the first and second dose of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine in people under age 60. Now, those people will wait 16 weeks instead of 12 weeks between shots.
Bulgaria, Denmark, Iceland and Norway have halted AstraZeneca shots.
Austria, Italy and Romania banned certain "lots" or batches of the shots.
Health officials in Norway sounded the alarm after 23 patients died shortly after receiving the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. They advise doctors to use caution in administering the shot to "very frail elderly patients."
After investigating 13 of the deaths, the Norwegian authorities concluded that common side effects from so-called "RNA" vaccines may be too much for a frail elderly person to handle, and may contribute to their death.
Swedish health officials recently determined that people under age 65 should not get the Johnson and Johnson vaccine due to reports of blood clots.
In the U.S., the Johnson and Johnson vaccine has the all-clear after a temporary "pause" on the shot amid concerns about blood clots. U.S. health officials okayed resuming distribution of the vaccine with added safety warnings about possible blood disorders.
Unlike Norway, the U.S. has no warning for the Pfizer/BioNTech shot in the frail, elderly.
Also in the U.S., AstraZeneca isn't yet approved.
Leave a Reply