Thread by @hhesterm

As there’s a popular line of thinking that takes the problems of Germany and the AZ vaccine as insulting the UK and this makes existing Brexit tensions worse I fear I have to depart from my plan never again to write on vaccines on twitter. So: Why is there a problem (thread)

First: where do I come from: I’d take the AZ vaccine in a heartbeat. It’s effective, it‘s safe - and if all Germans thought like me (many do, by the way) Germany would be better off. But what I want to explain is: why the scepticisim?

First off: I have spoken to a good many Germans who are sceptical - of vaccines overall, of the AZ vaccine in particular. There are several reasons. NONE are related to AZ or the UK. That does not mean that they’re all rational. Let’s start.

1) Overall vaccine criticism. That’s a bit of “I don’t want chemicals in my body”. Highly irrational. Misunderstands what chemicals are. I have problems reproducing that line of thought, as I have problems following it.

2) Coronavirus vaccine criticism. Drug approval systems were under intense political pressure. Never have systems worked so fast. Better wait for some time before I get a vaccine. They have a point on the politics and the time. But boy is the risk assessment off.

3) The AZ vaccine. The first report of AZ numbers - you may remember - reported 70% effectiveness. AZ had a bit of a dosage problem in phase 3 trials. We can now rather safely say: the real number is significantly higher. bbc.com/news/health-55…

The problems with the phase 3 studies linger: Switzerland and the US have not approved the AZ vaccine (they receive less criticism than the EU countries, though) dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9…

Moderna and Pfizer both reported > 90%. These numbers framed perception. And it framed the perception as a question: would you rather have the 70% effective vaccine or the 90% effective one? Later studies have showed this to be wrong, but early perceptions are hard to shake.

But note in this regard that there are differences between “my study went through the FDA” and “I have published a paper somewhere” in terms of the rigour of the study. I hope that we soon get the US FDA results and numbers. But anyway, on to the next point:

4) And here we get to a difference between the NHS and the German health system. The German health system involves a bit more choice. And Germans have little experience with actual limitations of availability.

So they think there’s a choice. And that the choice is 70% or 90%. Why would you take the 70% if you can get the 90?
Completely wrong with regard to reality. But there you go.

5) What I have never ever heard anyone say: “I won’t take AZ because I am sceptical of AZ” or “I won’t take AZ because I don’t like the UK”. That line of thinking simply does not exist. (Plus the UK is actually generally well-liked even if Brexit might not be)

And finally 6) Again: I do not share the thoughts I wrote about. No need to convince me.

Oh and as we are discussing this: Angela Merkel not taking the vaccine: Angela Merkel is not in the priority group. If she’d take the vaccine now she’d jump the queue. Quite frankly - I respect that. I deeply dislike those jumping the queue claiming they can serve as an example.

That is, by the way, what some German footballers try to do: “oh look, we can be an example”. No s***, “hero”.

And a final thought: the covid mortality and overall case incidence rate in Germany is lower than in the UK. That leads to fewer personal experiences and a false sense of less alarm. (Source: jhu from today) One of the peculiarities we’ve seen in the last months...

is that countries’ risk perceptions are touched less by what happens abroad - the crisis in Italy did not lead other countries to react adequately, for example. That also is a dangerous misconception.