The rates at population levels are not enough. These are rare cases and, at least partially, in groups of people who shouldn't get that ill and suddenly die
Last week, Lothar Wieler, head of Germany’s Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases, said there was no evidence that patients who received the vaccine were more likely than patients of a similar age group to suffer blood conditions.
Is that guy wrong or basing the statement on outdated information?
Might be outdated, since he talks about clotting generally but the agency in charge of halting the vaccinations mentions a specific rare complication today [1]:
> accumulation of a special form of very rare cerebral vein thrombosis (sinus vein thrombosis) in connection with a deficiency of blood platelets (thrombocytopenia) and bleeding in temporal proximity to vaccinations with the COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca.
Perhaps really just a bad batch somehow if this particular complication wasn't observed in the UK.
There is new data, and the statement from the Paul Ehrlich Institute refers specifically to a specific type of thrombosis. The PEI is the institute responsible for vaccines, the RKI is for infectious diseases in general.
It's hard to say if this is a good decision, my impression is that this is too risk-averse given the real danger and very significant chance of COVID 19 infections. But it does seem to be based on different data than just a few days ago.
In Norway, two health care workers are receiving intensive care for isolated low platelets and blood clotting. A third was also admitted but died from a cerebral catastrophe. These are all young (<50 years) and previously healthy. Of course this is serious and needs proper investigation.
Maybe the risk for some specific groups justify giving them another vaccine?
Why not? Sweden is a great country on a lot of measures. Shouldn't quality of life count more? Or access to free, high quality health care for you and your family? Free education for your children? What if that kind of openness is in fact improving the society? Norway is very transparent as well.
It seems irrational to deny oneself and ones family the opportunity of moving to some of the best countries in the world (on a lot of measures) due to principle.
I guess the matter is trust. It is hard to become more trusting as adults, and yet, society works much better when the baseline of trust is higher.
It's not free healthcare/education, it's paid with taxes.
Why would the government publishing my personal information help me? Or is it that publishing my personal information would help other people more than it would harm me?
Sure, there are costs of course, but not for you as a patient or parent or student*, only as a tax payer. The discussion is also raised here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26440702
If making more information public increases trust, both between government and citizens and among citizens, then it's good for all. Of course, not all information should be public, but transparency is often useful.
And different stances in these kind of questions are probably adaptive in different societies. Publishing financial information is not adaptive if there is a high risk of being robbed as a result**. Having your address public is nice if all you get is flowers and post cards.
However, my main point was that "never move to Sweden" because more information about you is public, is quite unproportional as Sweden is one of the best countries to live in.
* There as some fees though, at least in Norway, but there is a limit of about $300 above which you don't need to pay for medical treatment. Some medicines have small costs, and there is also a fee for skipping your appointment without cancelling in advance. University costs about $80 per semester, but you're eligible for a public grant of ~$4 000 per semester.
** There is an ongoing case in Norway where a billionaire's wife has been kidnapped with a demanded ransom of €9 000 000. However, the police seems to believe that the motive is not merely financial https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%B8renskog-forsvinningen
Thanks. I think "how much better is X country over Y country for me" depends on the circumstances of the person. E.g. for people who have health insurance in the USA (~90%), it's a different situation than for people who don't.
Well... for me, there's literally no reason my neighbors (or any other random person on the internet) needs to know all that information about me or my family...
It's funny how much energy there is behind things like GDPR preventing a company from transferring people's email address to a partner, when, by comparison, this is much more sensitive information.
I don't think that having free healthcare or college requires baring private financial and other information to any nosy busybody who wants it.
Thank you for the nuances; my main issue with the comment was dismissing Sweden as an option for good, which seemed quite unproportional. Sweden is a good country to live in, regardless of their policy on sharing this kind of information
Personally, I think openness about taxes, fortune etc. is good to check that everyone contributes as they should. But before it was protected by login, at least in Norway, there was a (minor) problem with maps showing which streets had the wealthiest inhabitants (the police didn't like it)
I agree with you. In the US, looking at the lowest 20% earning men; 42% of their sons are still in the lowest 20% compared to below 30% in Nordic countries. Looking at those going from bottom 20% to top 20%, the US is at about 8% compared to 14% in Denmark
Where in the world is it easiest to become rich? The Nordic countries, of course! Iceland, Norway and Sweden have the highest proportions of billionares in the world https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9UmdY0E8hU
Transclusions are great indeed! With proper filer mechanisms it's amazing what you can do. Have a look a TiddlyWiki (https://tiddlywiki.com/), which is open source and essentially built on transclusions. It's a bit hard to explain, but when one gets one's head around the concept, it's extremely powerful and flexible!
I think it's great to have a record of all my vaccines accessible online, and knowing that my doctor knows, and that researchers may have access to looking at say vaccinations and harmful effects. It is also nice for the children that someone keeps track of which vaccines they've got and can pick up those who missed a vaccine for some reason.
> All vaccinations are subject to notification to SYSVAK, and shall be registered without consent.
Interesting! As a Scandinavian it's hard to imagine how any government can function effectively and properly without good records. Being able to read up-to-date, high-quality population statistics is wonderful, and also that researchers can get access to various records and link them. And I struggle to see how to expect the government/public services to take care of me, protect me and provide me good services if it didn't know who I am and what threats/problems there are in the society
Governments existed before electronic databases. Databases do increase effectiveness, but effective government is not without potential downsides.
The government can be effective at helping you or oppressing you. Some kinds of databases intuitively seem weighted more toward one end than than the other. Most databases are a gray area that could be used for either.
And a lot depends on trust, too. Perhaps you simply trust your government more, and perhaps with good reason.
I really like the web page of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation: https://www.nrk.no/
It is so clean and nice, doing exactly what it should: present the news. No ads, no popup, no clutter. And they are incredibly fast picking up what happens abroad (for example, during several terror incidents around in Europe, NRK has been quicker with updates than bbc) as well as presenting curiosities such as: "Cute owl saved from ugly, Norwegian tree" [0]. In comparison, bbc.com (which is relatively okay for a news web page) makes me dizzy with all the different sections and styles and clutter
