‘Erring on the side of rare events’? A behavioural explanation for COVID-19 vaccine regulatory misalignment

摘要

The development of new vaccines against COVID-19 has triggered a debate about which of the vaccines should be chosen, and in some countries which vaccines to authorise. The choice of vaccines in Western countries seems to be largely driven by trust in the vaccine manufacturers, with safety concerns regarding potential rare side effects rather than relative efficacy playing the pivotal role in this choice [1]. So far, vaccines developed by China, Russia and India have largely been ignored in Western countries. Amongst the vaccine candidates currently in use in many western countries, access to the AstraZeneca (AZ) and Johnson & Johnson’s (JJ) vaccine has been restricted and, in some cases, suspended as they hav been perceived to be the least safe despite being approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) [2] and recommended by the WHO [3].