Whos afraid of AstraZeneca?
On the opening day of the Wimbledon tennis tournament this week, one of the British scientists behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, Dame Sarah Gilbert, received a warm and sustained standing ovation from her seat in the Royal Box. In Australia, when Tennis Australia president Jayne Hrdlicka mentioned the coming vaccinations in February, the crowd booed. AstraZeneca was to be the backbone of Australias vaccine program. The federal government contracted 53 million doses, most made onshore, making it cheap and available. But less than a year later, frequent disruptions to the vaccine program and changes to clinical advice around AstraZeneca, have left it the poor cousin of Australias vaccine effort. Doctors are worried their excess supply of doses will expire in the fridge. State run clinics are full of empty chairs and thousands of people are avoiding AstraZeneca and waiting until Pfizer doses arrive. Joe Laney, 32, receives the AstraZeneca vaccine. It is 60 per cent effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 infections from the Delta strain (Pfizer is 88 per cent effective). AstraZeneca is 92 per cent effective against hospitalisations from Delta (Pfizer is 96 per cent)  and, like Pfizer, its 100 percent effective at preventing death.