The answer is mostly no.
How you feel about the risks is probably influenced by where you live. One of the paradoxes of the current situation for Australians is that our advantage of being isolated and far away from the places where Covid-19 has been rampant, is now our disadvantage.
As the rest of the world gets access to vaccines, supplies are harder for Australia to secure. Our distance and relative lack of disease means suppliers give higher priority to Europe and America, as their politicians use their leverage to secure supply in their homelands.
And America, which did so badly in controlling the spread of Covid-19 is flipping its reputation for being a laggard, now vaccinating rapidly. A record four million Americans were vaccinated on Saturday, according to the Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/05/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/
For Australians, our protective isolation will start to feel frustrating if we haven’t been vaccinated when many others have been. Although it could be argued that the world won’t be completely safe until all people are vaccinated – this is especially so if variants emerge in countries that have poor control over the disease in the first place.
The risk of getting the vaccine related blood clots is put at 1 in 200,000. The ABC has reported that a quarter of those who get the blood clot will die from it.
“So, according to the basic maths, the risk of dying from one of these blood clots after taking the vaccine is very roughly about one in 800,000,” it says.
To see how the ABC does the maths, go to:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-08/covid19-vaccine-blood-clotting-az-explainer/100055638
This compares to the risk of dying from Covid-19 itself.
It’s surprisingly hard to boil all the statistics down to a simple calculation for comparison. But here are a few figures.
Forbes tells us that Covid-19 increased the risk of dying in 2020 by about 10 percent for the average American. See Forbes’ discussion on Covid-19 death rates at:
That’s a heck of a lot higher than the risk of dying from a blood clot caused by the vaccine.
Looking at the story another way, more specifically at blood clots, a recent South Korean study confirmed a pretty consistent finding, that a little under 10 per cent of those with Covid-19 need intensive care.
https://jintensivecare.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40560-021-00527-x
But up to as many as 70 per cent of those in intensive care with Covid-19 will get blood clots, according to Australia’s Heart Research Institute. For this discussion, see:
So for most people, the vaccine is much safer than the disease. This is especially so as you get older. The risks of getting a blood clot from the vaccine drop as you get older. The risk of dying of Covid-19 is higher as you get older.
This doesn’t mean age is strictly a risk factor. It means the older you get, the more likely your other diseases will impact on your ability to survive Covid-19. The severity of your individual case of Covid-19 appears to be almost based on luck, whatever your age. But the research to unravel this continues.
For more on the vaccine roll-out see my article in the Daily Telegraph.
AstraZeneca vaccine: Dr Ann Allsop of Cremorne explains blood clotting risk | Daily Telegraph
For discussion about the more usually respiratory mode of death with Covid-19, go to:
And don’t feel hopeless about the risk of dying of Covid-19, even if you are old. For details, go to: