COVID-19 Vaccines and Blood Clots

Why have European countries paused their Astrazeneca rollout?

Pictured: Gotta love vaccines! Source: SELF Magazine

Edit 6/04 with new data about the MHRA and EMA investigations into these clots and the Astrazeneca vaccine.

Edit 8/04: The EMA has now confirmed that a link between the Astrazeneca vaccine and these rare clot conditions is likely. In other news, I had my Astrazeneca vaccine last week.

Vaccines are amazing, life-saving innovations, and the COVID-19 vaccines are no different. As with any medical procedure, there are potential drawbacks to using them, but we know from massive pieces of scientific research that the COVID-19 vaccines are both safe and effective.

And yet, as you have probably heard on the news, for one specific vaccine most of Europe has stopped their rollout. Rather than giving millions of people the Astrazeneca/Oxford (AZ) vaccine against COVID-19, a dozen countries have decided to stop vaccinating due to fears of side-effects.

Pictured: Ducks. Not a known side-effect of vaccination, but they are definitely cute. Source: Pexels

So I thought I would explain what’s happening, and why you probably don’t need to worry even if you’ve had the AZ vaccine.

How It All Works