Better protection just isn't true. The figures are not only within a few percent in most studies, but in some studies AZ is ahead. This is all about stats, and those will vary depending upon the sample size and population.

Side-effects? Fair enough. But so what? Most medication has side effects. Incidentally the US CDC says that with the Pfizer one "77.4% reported at least one systemic reaction" and "fatigue, headache and new or worsened muscle pain were most common". This isn't to say AZ may not have higher incidence, but to point out that it doesn't matter which you choose there may still be side-effects, and anecdotes about AZ are faster to spread due to the unwarranted distrust.

The controversy AZ has been clouded in has mostly been politically motivated, AZ miscommunications, natural issues with vaccine yields, or plain wrong. Apart from the rare blood issue, most of it has been either not genuine or irrelevant. Even for the blood issue there are more regulators, governments, and doctors who say it is not a statistical issue than there are who do. It's all about the optics though.

People should not be turning down an AZ vaccine to wait potentially months for a different vaccine (which will still have it's own side effects even if lower). A day or two of side effects vs an extra few months protection is a no-brainer.

People choose Pfizer (which I am not knocking; I'd gladly have it if offered) based on what they read - and the press war is being won by AZ detractors despite the number of times they are wrong (eg Macron saying quasi-inneffective for older people and then France only wanting to use it for older people, or the UK choosing to wait longer than a couple of weeks between doses, being called terrible and irresponsible, but now even the WHO says that improves protection).

As for the US keeping doses on ice, that's not "particularly telling" at all. It isn't approved for use there yet. And they aren't in a hurry as they have enough of the other vaccines. Plus, they are 'loaning' millions of AZ vaccine doses to Mexico and Canada which they wouldn't do unless they thought it was pretty safe (as their FDC has already publicly said it is).

Pfizer seems to be a great vaccine. But so is AstraZeneca and continual unwarranted attacks risks destroying trust in a vaccine (AZ) which is being produced at cost in over a dozen countries and is intended to form up to 90% of the world's protection.

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To risk being overly melodramatic, unlike their counterparts (and admittedly at the prompting of the UK government and Oxford University) AstraZeneca producing billions of doses (the plan) at cost in multiple countries using local production is actually the rare example of a drug company almost literally saving the world without profiteering whilst they do it. They should be applauded, not continually attacked.

In the same way (and I don't like saying this as I believe in the EU and voted remain in the British referendum) the EU attacks the UK for not sharing, when the British government co-funded vaccine development at a British university and ensured a British/Swedish partner providing at-cost production for the world, whilst the EU haggled about prices.