My prior would be that there probably is no blood clot problem. With the HPV vaccine there were the same fears and a large study showed that this was not the case (source: NPR ).
Of course, it is possible that this time it is different and of course, it should be investigated. However, I think that the probability is high that stopping using this vaccine while investigating will kill much more people than its continuous use.
Edit: Having thought about it a little bit longer, I am not so sure anymore about the last paragraph above. Because there is a second order risk: that the unlikely, I believe, case is true that the vaccine causes dangerous blood clots, but the public is told to get vaccinated anyway—possibly leading to a major loss of confidence in all vaccines once this is clear, and by reducing vaccination rates killing many, many more people than the blood clots.
My intuition is that this is an unlikely worry. The people who actually understand the math on vaccines might be slightly more cautious, but won’t actually care, and will keep saying that vaccinating despite the blood clots was the right choice. While the people who are currently scared of vaccines won’t really care, and will just point to this as an additional reason to believe what they already believed.
This neglects to account for a large group of people who have no opinion and will be swayed by any news, positive or negative. Overcoming a formed opinion is going to be harder.
My prior would be that there probably is no blood clot problem. With the HPV vaccine there were the same fears and a large study showed that this was not the case (source: NPR ).
Blood clots are a somewhat common problem, see e.g. Data and Statistics on Venous Thromboembolism so cases of that are to be expected.
Of course, it is possible that this time it is different and of course, it should be investigated. However, I think that the probability is high that stopping using this vaccine while investigating will kill much more people than its continuous use.
Edit: Having thought about it a little bit longer, I am not so sure anymore about the last paragraph above. Because there is a second order risk: that the unlikely, I believe, case is true that the vaccine causes dangerous blood clots, but the public is told to get vaccinated anyway—possibly leading to a major loss of confidence in all vaccines once this is clear, and by reducing vaccination rates killing many, many more people than the blood clots.
My intuition is that this is an unlikely worry. The people who actually understand the math on vaccines might be slightly more cautious, but won’t actually care, and will keep saying that vaccinating despite the blood clots was the right choice. While the people who are currently scared of vaccines won’t really care, and will just point to this as an additional reason to believe what they already believed.
This neglects to account for a large group of people who have no opinion and will be swayed by any news, positive or negative. Overcoming a formed opinion is going to be harder.