Marylouise McLaws, advisor to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and professor at UNSW, said that we should not “be worried at all” that some countries have suspended their vaccine rollouts and that clotting is likely not linked to AstraZeneca.
“There are over 10 million people every year diagnosed with a clot. This particular one is very rare,” she said on Today.
“When you’ve been vaccinated and you have one of these rare events, people get very anxious because they think there’s some causation but there is probably likely to be no causation.
“I don’t think we should be worried at all.”
“Before we start linking the dots, we just need to put this into perspective that this is a very rare event and it’s likely not to do with AstraZeneca,” she said.
“This man is 44, he is very young to be starting to get vaccinated so he’s either healthcare or front-liner and has a particular need, a medical need to be vaccinated because the risk of COVID is great.”
Asked about Australia’s own rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations, Professor McLaws said that it has been “very slow”.
“Look, the rollout has been very slow and in January I warned the public that this would be slow and an enormous undertaking,” she said.
“We probably do need to relook at how we can do catch-up.
“I believe that Australia is now catching up with that frontline group, the quarantine workers and the frontline clinicians. They’re our most important group. They need to be 100 percent covered.”
This content first appear on 9news