Europe's vaccine lunacy

The safety concerns in question revolve around a handful of cases of abnormal blood clotting observed in people in the U.K. and elsewhere who received the vaccine. So far, though, it doesn’t look like the numbers of such cases are out of line with the incidence in the general population. In other words, there isn’t even evidence yet of an increase in abnormal blood clots, much less proof linking them to the vaccine. The European Medicines Agency has reaffirmed its conclusion that the vaccines are safe, as has the World Health Organization. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration still hasn’t approved them for use in the U.S., but the expectation is that the approval will be forthcoming in April, notwithstanding the recent concerns in Europe.

In normal circumstances, then, the decision to pause would likely be criticized as an overabundance of caution that would cost lives. But these are not normal circumstances. In a pandemic, it is normal to cut a variety of corners — using smaller-than-recommended doses of the vaccine, for example — to halt the spread of the disease, because the trolley really is going to hit a whole lot of pedestrians if it isn’t stopped as quickly as possible. In that regard, what makes the European pause especially maddening is that abnormal blood clotting is a well-documented symptom of COVID-19 itself, which the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine has been demonstrably effective at preventing. Even if every case of abnormal clotting observed in the vaccinated population were due to the vaccine, the virus would cause them at a rate nearly a hundred times higher — and if it continues to rage unchecked, most of Europe’s population will get it.