Keeping tabs, keeping jabs – Michela Spiteri
I am as guilty as the next person of listening in on fragments of casual conversation when I’m out. First it was coronavirus case numbers. Now it’s vaccines. Only yesterday, I picked up what I can expect if and when I take the jab. I read somewhere that the best vaccine is the one you’re offered and I suppose in an ideal world we’d all be grateful. But we don’t live in one and, just as there are people and people, so it appears there are vaccines and vaccines. Earlier this week, the US, South Africa and the EU temporarily halted the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which has, generically, much in common with AstraZeneca and is thought to generate the same rare kind of blood clotting. AstraZeneca, of course, has been rejected by Denmark and significantly reduced in several other countries. Here in Malta, as far as I know, the Malta Medicine Authority has not recommended any changes and is sticking to the “benefits far outweigh the risk” spiel. I’m not here to argue, although I’d rather an authority which trod carefully and levelled with us. ‘No confirmed link’ to blood clots is not the same as ‘No link’ and neither are calls Charmaine Gauci should be making in the light of what...