Berlin suspends use of AstraZeneca vaccine for below-60s

German state halts use of COVID vaccine amid resurgent fears of blood clots as a rare side effect.

The German state of Berlin is again suspending the use of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine for people below 60 over reports of blood clots. Berlin’s top health official, Dilek Kalayci, said on Tuesday that the decision was taken as a precaution before a meeting of representatives from all of Germany’s 16 states after the country’s medical regulator reported 31 cases of rare blood clots in people who had recently received the vaccine. Of them, nine people died. All but two cases involved women aged 20 to 63, according to the Paul Ehrlich Institute, Germany’s medical regulator.