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EU regulator declares AstraZeneca vaccine safe, but experts fear damage has been done – CNN

Published

4 years ago

March 18, 2021

The European Medicines Agency (EMA)’s executive director Emer Cooke said the agency had “come to a clear scientific conclusion: this is a safe and effective vaccine.”

Cooke said the group did not find that the vaccine causes clotting, though it could not rule out definitively a link to a rare blood clotting disorder, of which seven cases have been reported out of several million doses given. She said the benefits of using the vaccine outweighed the risk.

The committee “concluded that the vaccine is not associated with an increase in the overall risk of thromboembolic events, or blood clots,” Cooke said.

The agency’s decision comes after more than a dozen European countries halted their use of the vaccine, citing reports of a handful of patients across Europe who developed clotting after being inoculated.

Most of the countries said they would await the EMA’s green light before resuming rollouts, but concerns remain about the impact of the suspensions on vaccine hesitancy across the continent.

“I want to reiterate that our scientific position is this: this vaccine is a safe and effective option to protect citizens against Covid-19,” Cooke said at a press conference Thursday.

“It demonstrated that at least 60% efficacy in clinical trials and preventing coronavirus disease, and in fact the real world evidence suggests that the effectiveness could be even higher than that.”

The group said it recommended raising awareness of blood clot reports so that they could be further analyzed. But they said those reports were rare, and that more than 7 million people have received the vaccine in the EU.

Virtually all of western Europe had temporarily stopped using the shot in recent days, even amid a third wave of coronavirus infections across the region, after a small number of reports of clots emerged.

The death of a person in Austria, a woman in Denmark and a third patient in Norway sparked the suspensions. But the decisions were criticized by much of the medical community, and other countries continued to back the use of the vaccine — including the UK, which has given out more than 11 million AstraZeneca doses so far.

In the EU, leaders will now face the question of how to rebuild any trust in the AstraZeneca vaccine that has been lost over the past week. The bloc’s rollout of the jab has stumbled from one obstacle to another since it was approved for use in January, with governments scrambling to secure limited supplies of the jab while simultaneously casting doubts over its efficacy and safety.

Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Cyprus, the Netherlands all announced plans to resume AstraZeneca vaccinations on Friday, with other countries expected to follow. Milan’s largest vaccine center told CNN it would overbook appointments in an attempt to make up for the shortfalls of the past few days.

Ireland’s Prime Minister had earlier told CNN he hoped his country could “catch up fairly quickly” once the vaccination program resumed.

But experts fear that some damage has already been done. In France, an Elabe poll showed this week that only 22% of the population now trusts the AstraZeneca vaccine. Remi Salomon, a senior French hospitals official, told BFM TV on Thursday that “people are being overly cautious” in the country and that he feared “people will not interpret” the suspensions in “the right way.”

“A scare like this has the potential to increase vaccine hesitancy,” Michael Head, senior research fellow in Global Health at the University of Southampton in Britain, told CNN earlier in the week. “These vaccines are to protect against a pandemic virus. There is an urgency to the rollout.”

Nations prepare to restart their rollouts

The EMA did not explicitly advise countries to resume their rollouts, though most have indicated they would do so if the agency reached this conclusion.

But Cooke noted during Thursday’s press conference that “a lot of member states are waiting for this outcome,” and said the conclusions would allow those countries to “make informed decisions.”

And in some European countries, the clamor to make up for lost time began immediately.

“We must resume vaccination as quickly as possible,” Michel Chassang, a French GP and president of the Confederation Of French Medical Trade Unions, told BFM after the EMA announcement.

“The only way to stop the circulation of this virus is precisely to make sure people are vaccinated,” he said, admitting that a loss of confidence in the vaccine could hamper those efforts. “It won’t be easy, we will swim against the tide, because this vaccine (has) now got bad press … and even since the start.”

Its rollout on the continent has been affected by myriad problems; several countries cast doubts over whether it was effective in older people last month, before subsequently concluding that it was.

The EU has also been involved in a tug-of-war over limited supplies after AstraZeneca said it was unable to deliver its full amount of promised supplies; Italy blocked exports of the shot to Australia just days before suspending its rollout.

Italy was the first country to announce it would restart vaccinations after the EMA’s briefing. “The reasons behind the precautionary ban on the use of vaccine batches, issued on March 15, 2021, no longer exist,” its regulatory agency said.

In the UK, which is well ahead of the European bloc in administering doses, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would himself be getting the AstraZeneca vaccine on Friday.

Speaking at the UK’s daily Covid-19 briefing, Johnson said the EMA’s verdict was “very important for our European friends.”

“The Oxford jab is safe and the Pfizer jab is safe — the thing that isn’t safe is catching Covid,” he added. “People should continue to get their vaccine when asked to do so.”

Shortly before the EMA’s announcement, Britain’s regulatory agency ruled that “the available evidence does not suggest” the vaccine caused clotting. It said it will continue to review five reports of blood clots in the country, out of more than 11 million people it had vaccinated.

“There is no evidence that that blood clots in veins is occurring more than would be expected in the absence of vaccination, for either vaccine,” MHRA chief executive June Raine said, referring to the Pfizer vaccine which the UK is also rolling out.

AstraZeneca has itself repeatedly insisted its product is safe.

Real-world data from the UK, where far more doses have been given, has shown that it is already having an impact there; a single dose of the vaccine reduced the risk of hospitalization from Covid-19 by more than 80% in people aged over 80, data from Public Health England showed earlier this month. The vaccine is given in two doses, though countries differ in how far apart they are spreading those shots.

Cooke cited such data during the briefing, calling the vaccine “a safe and effective option to protect citizens against Covid-19.”

There is “no increase in overall risk of blood clots” with the AstraZeneca vaccine,” added Dr. Sabine Straus, chair of the EMA’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC).

AstraZeneca isn’t the only vaccine available in Europe. Doses of the BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are currently being rolled out to Europeans, while the first deliveries of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine aren’t expected to arrive until mid-April. On Tuesday, Pfizer agreed to accelerate delivery of 10 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine to the EU, days after AstraZeneca said it would have a “shortfall” in planned vaccine shipments to the bloc.

How rare are the reports of clotting?

More than a dozen countries stopped using the AstraZeneca vaccine following a handful of reports, which began emerging when a woman in Austria died last week.

But those reports were very rare, the EMA confirmed on Thursday. There were seven reports of blood clots in multiple blood vessels (known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, or DIC) and another 18 reports of clots in the vessels draining blood from the brain (CVST)

The overall number of reports of any clotting event after vaccination, either in studies before licensing and during the rollouts, was 469, with 191 of those occurring in the EU. That number too was “lower than that expected in the general population,” the EMA said.

“The Committee was of the opinion that the vaccine’s proven efficacy in preventing hospitalisation and death from COVID-19 outweighs the extremely small likelihood of developing DIC or CVST,” they concluded.

The agency noted there “have been very rare cases of unusual blood clots accompanied by low levels of blood platelets” after vaccination. Those cases “were almost all in women under 55,” they said.

Health experts have been virtually unanimous during the week that the reports were very infrequent, and many expressed surprise when EU countries stopped using the vaccine.

“The numbers involved are tiny, and also probably no more than you would expect in a population anyway,” Jon Gibbins, director of the Institute for Cardiovascular and Metabolic Research at the University of Reading, told CNN earlier this week.

“When you then start immunizing millions of people, it’s inevitable this is going to happen every now and again,” Gibbins said. “But it doesn’t demonstrate causality, it doesn’t demonstrate that the vaccine is actually responsible.”

CNN’s Barbara Wojazer in Paris and Antonia Mortensen in Milan contributed to this report.

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The #1 Skill I Look For When Hiring

Published

16 hours ago

September 17, 2024

Nick Kossovan

File this column under “for what it’s worth.”

“Communication is one of the most important skills you require for a successful life.” — Catherine Pulsifer, author.

I’m one hundred percent in agreement with Pulsifer, which is why my evaluation of candidates begins with their writing skills. If a candidate’s writing skills and verbal communication skills, which I’ll assess when interviewing, aren’t well above average, I’ll pass on them regardless of their skills and experience.

Why?

Because business is fundamentally about getting other people to do things—getting employees to be productive, getting customers to buy your products or services, and getting vendors to agree to a counteroffer price. In business, as in life in general, you can’t make anything happen without effective communication; this is especially true when job searching when your writing is often an employer’s first impression of you.

Think of all the writing you engage in during a job search (resumes, cover letters, emails, texts) and all your other writing (LinkedIn profile, as well as posts and comments, blogs, articles, tweets, etc.) employers will read when they Google you to determine if you’re interview-worthy.

With so much of our communication today taking place via writing (email, text, collaboration platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, ClickUp, WhatsApp and Rocket.Chat), the importance of proficient writing skills can’t be overstated.

When assessing a candidate’s writing skills, you probably think I’m looking for grammar and spelling errors. Although error-free writing is important—it shows professionalism and attention to detail—it’s not the primary reason I look at a candidate’s writing skills.

The way someone writes reveals how they think.

Clear writing = Clear thinking
Structured paragraphs = Structured mind
Impactful sentences = Impactful ideas

Effective writing isn’t about using sophisticated vocabulary. Hemingway demonstrated that deceptively simple, stripped-down prose can captivate readers. Effective writing takes intricate thoughts and presents them in a way that makes the reader think, “Damn! Why didn’t I see it that way?” A good writer is a dead giveaway for a good thinker. More than ever, the business world needs “good thinkers.”

Therefore, when I come across a candidate who’s a good writer, hence a good thinker, I know they’re likely to be able to write:

Emails that don’t get deleted immediately and are responded to
Simple, concise, and unambiguous instructions
Pitches that are likely to get read
Social media content that stops thumbs
Human-sounding website copy
Persuasively, while attuned to the reader’s possible sensitivities

Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: AI, which job seekers are using en masse. Earlier this year, I wrote that AI’s ability to hyper-increase an employee’s productivity—AI is still in its infancy; we’ve seen nothing yet—in certain professions, such as writing, sales and marketing, computer programming, office and admin, and customer service, makes it a “fewer employees needed” tool, which understandably greatly appeals to employers. In my opinion, the recent layoffs aren’t related to the economy; they’re due to employers adopting AI. Additionally, companies are trying to balance investing in AI with cost-cutting measures. CEOs who’ve previously said, “Our people are everything,” have arguably created today’s job market by obsessively focusing on AI to gain competitive advantages and reduce their largest expense, their payroll.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that most AI usage involves generating written content, content that’s obvious to me, and likely to you as well, to have been written by AI. However, here’s the twist: I don’t particularly care.

Why?

Because the fundamental skill I’m looking for is the ability to organize thoughts and communicate effectively. What I care about is whether the candidate can take AI-generated content and transform it into something uniquely valuable. If they can, they’re demonstrating the skills of being a good thinker and communicator. It’s like being a great DJ; anyone can push play, but it takes skill to read a room and mix music that gets people pumped.

Using AI requires prompting effectively, which requires good writing skills to write clear and precise instructions that guide the AI to produce desired outcomes. Prompting AI effectively requires understanding structure, flow and impact. You need to know how to shape raw information, such as milestones throughout your career when you achieved quantitative results, into a compelling narrative.

So, what’s the best way to gain and enhance your writing skills? As with any skill, you’ve got to work at it.

Two rules guide my writing:

Use strong verbs and nouns instead of relying on adverbs, such as “She dashed to the store.” instead of “She ran quickly to the store.” or “He whispered to the child.” instead of “He spoke softly to the child.”
Avoid using long words when a shorter one will do, such as “use” instead of “utilize” or “ask” instead of “inquire.” As attention spans get shorter, I aim for clarity, simplicity and, most importantly, brevity in my writing.

Don’t just string words together; learn to organize your thoughts, think critically, and communicate clearly. Solid writing skills will significantly set you apart from your competition, giving you an advantage in your job search and career.

_____________________________________________________________________

Nick Kossovan, a well-seasoned veteran of the corporate landscape, offers “unsweetened” job search advice. You can send Nick your questions to artoffindingwork@gmail.com.

Business

Politics likely pushed Air Canada toward deal with ‘unheard of’ gains for pilots

Published

1 day ago

September 16, 2024

Anne Joseph

MONTREAL – Politics, public opinion and salary hikes south of the border helped push Air Canada toward a deal that secures major pay gains for pilots, experts say.

Hammered out over the weekend, the would-be agreement includes a cumulative wage hike of nearly 42 per cent over four years — an enormous bump by historical standards — according to one source who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. The previous 10-year contract granted increases of just two per cent annually.

The federal government’s stated unwillingness to step in paved the way for a deal, noted John Gradek, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made it plain the two sides should hash one out themselves.

“Public opinion basically pressed the federal cabinet, including the prime minister, to keep their hands clear of negotiations and looking at imposing a settlement,” said Gradek, who teaches aviation management at McGill University.

After late-night talks at a hotel near Toronto’s Pearson airport, the country’s biggest airline and the union representing 5,200-plus aviators announced early Sunday morning they had reached a tentative agreement, averting a strike that would have grounded flights and affected some 110,000 passengers daily.

The relative precariousness of the Liberal minority government as well as a push to appear more pro-labour underlay the prime minister’s hands-off approach to the negotiations.

Trudeau said Friday the government would not step in to fix the impasse — unlike during a massive railway work stoppage last month and a strike by WestJet mechanics over the Canada Day long weekend that workers claimed road roughshod over their constitutional right to collective bargaining. Trudeau said the government respects the right to strike and would only intervene if it became apparent no negotiated deal was possible.

“They felt that they really didn’t want to try for a third attempt at intervention and basically said, ‘Let’s let the airline decide how they want to deal with this one,'” said Gradek.

“Air Canada ran out of support as the week wore on, and by the time they got to Friday night, Saturday morning, there was nothing left for them to do but to basically try to get a deal set up and accepted by ALPA (Air Line Pilots Association).”

Trudeau’s government was also unlikely to consider back-to-work legislation after the NDP tore up its agreement to support the Liberal minority in Parliament, Gradek said. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, whose party has traditionally toed a more pro-business line, also said last week that Tories “stand with the pilots” and swore off “pre-empting” the negotiations.

Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau had asked Ottawa on Thursday to impose binding arbitration pre-emptively — “before any travel disruption starts” — if talks failed. Backed by business leaders, he’d hoped for an effective repeat of the Conservatives’ move to head off a strike in 2012 by legislating Air Canada pilots and ground crew to stick to their posts before any work stoppage could start.

The request may have fallen flat, however. Gradek said he believes there was less anxiety over the fallout from an airline strike than from the countrywide railway shutdown.

He also speculated that public frustration over thousands of cancelled flights would have flowed toward Air Canada rather than Ottawa, prompting the carrier to concede to a deal yielding “unheard of” gains for employees.

“It really was a total collapse of the Air Canada bargaining position,” he said.

Pilots are slated to vote in the coming weeks on the four-year contract.

Last year, pilots at Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and American Airlines secured agreements that included four-year pay boosts ranging from 34 per cent to 40 per cent, ramping up pressure on other carriers to raise wages.

After more than a year of bargaining, Air Canada put forward an offer in August centred around a 30 per cent wage hike over four years.

But the final deal, should union members approve it, grants a 26 per cent increase in the first year alone, retroactive to September 2023, according to the source. Three wage bumps of four per cent would follow in 2024 through 2026.

Passengers may wind up shouldering some of that financial load, one expert noted.

“At the end of the day, it’s all us consumers who are paying,” said Barry Prentice, who heads the University of Manitoba’s transport institute.

Higher fares may be mitigated by the persistence of budget carrier Flair Airlines and the rapid expansion of Porter Airlines — a growing Air Canada rival — as well as waning demand for leisure trips. Corporate travel also remains below pre-COVID-19 levels.

Air Canada said Sunday the tentative contract “recognizes the contributions and professionalism of Air Canada’s pilot group, while providing a framework for the future growth of the airline.”

The union issued a statement saying that, if ratified, the agreement will generate about $1.9 billion of additional value for Air Canada pilots over the course of the deal.

Meanwhile, labour tension with cabin crew looms on the horizon. Air Canada is poised to kick off negotiations with the union representing more than 10,000 flight attendants this year before the contract expires on March 31.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

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Federal $500M bailout for Muskrat Falls power delays to keep N.S. rate hikes in check

Published

2 days ago

September 16, 2024

Anne Joseph

HALIFAX – Ottawa is negotiating a $500-million bailout for Nova Scotia’s privately owned electric utility, saying the money will be used to prevent a big spike in electricity rates.

Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson made the announcement today in Halifax, saying Nova Scotia Power Inc. needs the money to cover higher costs resulting from the delayed delivery of electricity from the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric plant in Labrador.

Wilkinson says that without the money, the subsidiary of Emera Inc. would have had to increase rates by 19 per cent over “the short term.”

Nova Scotia Power CEO Peter Gregg says the deal, once approved by the province’s energy regulator, will keep rate increases limited “to be around the rate of inflation,” as costs are spread over a number of years.

The utility helped pay for construction of an underwater transmission link between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, but the Muskrat Falls project has not been consistent in delivering electricity over the past five years.

Those delays forced Nova Scotia Power to spend more on generating its own electricity.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

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