Several European countries have suspended the inoculation of the AstraZeneca vaccine out of suspicion that it causes deep vein thrombosis. In this letter, we report some Fermi estimates performed using a stochastic model aimed at making a risk–benefit analysis of the interruption of the delivery of the AstraZeneca vaccine in France and Italy. Our results clearly show that excess deaths due to the interruption of the vaccination campaign injections largely overrun those due to thrombosis even in worst case scenarios of frequency and gravity of the vaccine side effects.
REFERENCES
1.
J.
Wu
, W.
Cai
, D.
Watkins
, and J.
Glanz
, How The Virus Got Out
(The New York Times
, 2020
).2.
R. M.
Anderson
, H.
Heesterbeek
, D.
Klinkenberg
, and T. D.
Hollingsworth
, “How will country-based mitigation measures influence the course of the covid-19 epidemic?
,” Lancet
395
, 931
(2020
). 3.
M.
Chinazzi
, J. T.
Davis
, M.
Ajelli
, C.
Gioannini
, M.
Litvinova
, S.
Merler
, A.
Pastore y Piontti
, K.
Mu
, L.
Rossi
, K.
Sun
, C.
Viboud
, X.
Xiong
, H.
Yu
, M. E.
Halloran
, I. M.
Longini
, and A.
Vespignani
, “The effect of travel restrictions on the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (covid-19) outbreak
,” Science
368
, 395
(2020
). 4.
H.-Y.
Yuan
, G.
Han
, H.
Yuan
, S.
Pfeiffer
, A.
Mao
, L.
Wu
, and D.
Pfeiffer
, “The importance of the timing of quarantine measures before symptom onset to prevent covid-19 outbreaks—illustrated by Hong Kong’s intervention model
,” medRxiv
(2020
).5.
D.
Sridhar
and D.
Gurdasani
, “Herd immunity by infection is not an option
,” Science
371
, 230
(2021
). 6.
N.
Fernandes
, “Economic effects of coronavirus outbreak (covid-19) on the world economy,” available at SSRN 3557504 (2020).7.
M.
Cushman
, “Epidemiology and risk factors for venous thrombosis
,” Semin. Hematol.
44
, 62
(2007
). 8.
Bloomberg, March 2021, see https://tinyurl.com/2zk29abr.
9.
ANSA, March 2021, see https://tinyurl.com/4ywxt5kp.
10.
K.
Steele
, “The precautionary principle: A new approach to public decision-making?
,” Law Probab. Risk
5
, 19
(2006
). 11.
D.
Faranda
and T.
Alberti
, “Modeling the second wave of COVID-19 infections in France and Italy via a stochastic SEIR model
,” Chaos
30
, 111101
(2020
). 12.
T.
Alberti
and D.
Faranda
, “On the uncertainty of real-time predictions of epidemic growths: A covid-19 case study for china and italy
,” Commun. Nonlinear Sci. Numer. Simul.
90
, 105372
(2020
). 13.
I. M.
Held
, “The gap between simulation and understanding in climate modeling
,” Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc.
86
, 1609
(2005
). 14.
M.
Pascual
, M.
Roy
, and K.
Laneri
, “Simple models for complex systems: Exploiting the relationship between local and global densities
,” Theor. Ecol.
4
, 211
(2011
). 15.
U.
Gähde
, S.
Hartmann
, and J.
Wolf
, Models, Simulations, and the Reduction of Complexity, Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Hamburg (De Gruyter, 2013).16.
P.
Almaraz
, “Simple models, complex models, useful models: Can we tell them from the flap of a butterfly’s wings?
,” Front. Ecol. Evol.
2
, 54
(2014
). 17.
M.
Ghil
and V.
Lucarini
, “The physics of climate variability and climate change
,” Rev. Mod. Phys.
92
, 035002
(2020
). 18.
S.
Mahajan
, The Art of Insight in Science and Engineering: Mastering Complexity
(The MIT Press
, Cambridge
, 2014
).19.
T. G.
Shepherd
, “A common framework for approaches to extreme event attribution
,” Curr. Clim. Change Rep.
2
, 28
(2016
). 20.
P. M.
Anderson
and C. A.
Sherman
, “Applying the fermi estimation technique to business problems
,” J. Appl. Bus. Econ.
10
, 33
–42
(2010
).21.
D.
Faranda
, I. P.
Castillo
, O.
Hulme
, A.
Jezequel
, J. S. W.
Lamb
, Y.
Sato
, and E. L.
Thompson
, “Asymptotic estimates of sars-cov-2 infection counts and their sensitivity to stochastic perturbation
,” Chaos
30
, 051107
(2020
). 22.
F.
Brauer
, “Compartmental models in epidemiology,” in Mathematical Epidemiology (Springer, 2008), pp. 19–79.23.
C.
Sun
and Y.-H.
Hsieh
, “Global analysis of an SEIR model with varying population size and vaccination
,” Appl. Math. Model.
34
, 2685
(2010
). 24.
G. E.
Uhlenbeck
and L. S.
Ornstein
, “On the theory of the Brownian motion
,” Phys. Rev.
36
, 823
(1930
). 25.
P. L.
Delamater
et al., “Complexity of the basic reproduction number (r0)
,” Emerg. Infect. Dis.
25
(1
), 1
–4
(2019
). 26.
L.
Salvioli
, “Il vaccino anti covid in italia in tempo reale: Il sole 24 ore” (2021).27.
S. A.
Lauer
, K. H.
Grantz
, Q.
Bi
, F. K.
Jones
, Q.
Zheng
, H. R.
Meredith
, A. S.
Azman
, N. G.
Reich
, and J.
Lessler
, “The incubation period of coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) from publicly reported confirmed cases: Estimation and application
,” Ann. Intern. Med.
172
, 577
–582
(2020
). 28.
M.
Voysey
et al., “Safety and efficacy of the chadox1 ncov-19 vaccine (azd1222) against sars-cov-2: An interim analysis of four randomised controlled trials in Brazil, South Africa, and the UK
,” Lancet
397
, 99
(2021
). 29.
D.
Fanelli
and F.
Piazza
, “Analysis and forecast of COVID-19 spreading in China, Italy and France
,” Chaos Solitons Fractals
134
, 109761
(2020
). 30.
G.
Pullano
, L.
Di Domenico
, C. E.
Sabbatini
, E.
Valdano
, C.
Turbelin
, M.
Debin
, C.
Guerrisi
, C.
Kengne-Kuetche
, C.
Souty
, T.
Hanslik
et al., “Underdetection of cases of covid-19 in France threatens epidemic control
,” Nature
590
, 134
(2021
). 31.
32.
The Guardian, March 2021, see https://tinyurl.com/vvwhcydz.
33.
Here, we use European data accessible via the website of the European Medicines Agency at https://tinyurl.com/ht8y98kr to average out the large spread of national data.
34.
S.
Bouée
, C.
Emery
, A.
Samson
, J.
Gourmelen
, C.
Bailly
, and F.-E.
Cotté
, “Incidence of venous thromboembolism in France: A retrospective analysis of a national insurance claims database
,” Thromb. J.
14
, 4
(2016
). 35.
J. A.
Heit
, “Epidemiology of venous thromboembolism
,” Nat. Rev. Cardiol.
12
, 464
(2015
). 36.
Current data suggest that this is manifestly a gross worst case approximation.
37.
Anonymous
, “AGU statement: Investigation of scientists and officials in l’aquila, Italy, is unfounded
,” Eos Trans. Am. Geophys. Union
91
, 245
–252
(2010
).38.
A.
Benessia
and B.
De Marchi
, “When the earth shakes and science with it. The management and communication of uncertainty in the l’aquila earthquake
,” Futures
91
, 35
(2017
), Post-normal science in practice. 39.
J.
Reis
and P. S.
Spencer
, “Decision-making under uncertainty in environmental health policy: New approaches
,” Environ. Health Prev. Med.
24
, 7176
(2019
). 40.
A.
Kolmogorov
, “The local structure of turbulence in incompressible viscous fluid for very large Reynolds’ numbers
,” Akad. Nauk SSSR Dokl.
30
, 301
(1941
).41.
The Economist, March 2021, see https://tinyurl.com/83cbr4d3.
© 2021 Author(s). Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing.
2021
Author(s)
You do not currently have access to this content.