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GidMK's profile
Health Nerd
Health Nerd
Health Nerd
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@GidMK

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Health NerdVerified account

@GidMK

Epidemiologist. Writer (Guardian, Observer etc). "Well known research trouble-maker". PhDing at @UoW Host of @senscipod Email gidmk.healthnerd@gmail.com he/him

Sydney, New South Wales
theguardian.com/profile/gideon…
Joined November 2015

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    1. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 16 May 2020

      Health Nerd Retweeted Dr Adrian Heald

      This paper has recently been published, and is stoking headlines that tens of millions of people have been infected with #COVID19 in Britain already It also contains numerous mathematical and epidemiological errors This is worrying 🧵https://twitter.com/DrAdrianHeald/status/1260951024954638337 …

      Health Nerd added,

      Dr Adrian Heald @DrAdrianHeald
      Here's a peer reviewed study on the transmission of the virus from yours truly, if you have some spare time on your hands https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ijcp.13528 …
      4 replies 38 retweets 83 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 16 May 2020

      I am not going to comment on the reasons for the mistakes, because I obviously have no idea why the authors chose to make them, but I think it's worth pointing out the very clear errors Maybe they'll be corrected

      1 reply 0 retweets 14 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 16 May 2020

      Before we look at the problems, it's worth noting that I'm not kidding - this paper has already had a big impact Altmetric 452, the top publication from the journal it's inpic.twitter.com/GhVMqj1BHC

      1 reply 1 retweet 8 likes
      Show this thread
    4. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 16 May 2020

      So, let's look at the errors. The paper is here:https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ijcp.13528 …

      1 reply 0 retweets 8 likes
      Show this thread
    5. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 16 May 2020

      Basically, the authors did two things: 1) calculated the average growth rate in cases of COVID-19, and for some reason called this average R(ADIR) 2) used linear regression to predict R(ADIR) using a few oddly-chosen variables

      1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes
      Show this thread
    6. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 16 May 2020

      They found that the only thing that significantly* predicted R(ADIR) was cases/1,000 of COVID-19, and then extrapolated from the regression equation to assume that if cases/1,000 = 6.6 the R(ADIR) would be 0 *STATISTICALLYpic.twitter.com/qwxzjNENcq

      1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
      Show this thread
    7. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 16 May 2020

      This is the FIRST big mistake You can't just assume linearity, and you certainly can't just extrapolate like that. For example, marathon times have been going down for years, but if we extrapolate linearly to the year 2100 they'll take 0 minutes to run!

      2 replies 1 retweet 14 likes
      Show this thread
    8. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 16 May 2020

      You can run statistical tests to check all of these things and see if your assumptions are correct, but the authors didn't This is first-year stats stuff, and it's just missed entirely

      1 reply 1 retweet 12 likes
      Show this thread
    9. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 16 May 2020

      Which brings us to the SECOND big mistake: collinearity Without delving into too much depth, it's bad statistical practice to regress two things that we know are very closely relatedpic.twitter.com/GibiB0Hffl

      2 replies 3 retweets 15 likes
      Show this thread
    10. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 16 May 2020

      In this case, the authors calculated a variable (R(ADIR)) from new case numbers, and then regressed it against case numbers THESE TWO VARIABLES WILL ALWAYS BE CORRELATED BECAUSE THEY ARE CALCULATED FROM THE SAME INFORMATION

      1 reply 4 retweets 15 likes
      Show this thread
      Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 16 May 2020

      It's like regressing your age in years against the average age you've been over the last decade, and then shouting "Eureka!" when you find they are closely tied Again, a simple mistake, and something a first-year stats student is taught not to do

      11:14 PM - 16 May 2020
      • 1 Retweet
      • 8 Likes
      • Angela Douglas🕯 Joel (Rocket 🦝) 🌈🚀100%💉 SandyM Arch-Physicist 😷 #ZeroCovid Jeff Heller katybee 🐝#SafeEdForAll #MaskUp 🐝 SRPassingitOn
      1 reply 1 retweet 8 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 16 May 2020

          The THIRD big mistake is epidemiological. The authors assumed - with no evidence whatsoever - that an R(ADIR) of 0 meant immunity This is WRONGpic.twitter.com/2eCmbzdVDH

          2 replies 2 retweets 7 likes
          Show this thread
        3. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 16 May 2020

          Let's look at R(ADIR) It is basically the average of the ratio of new cases today to new cases over the last 5 days So where does immunity come in??? The authors don't say 🤔pic.twitter.com/6uhb6rGvYp

          1 reply 2 retweets 7 likes
          Show this thread
        4. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 16 May 2020

          Thing is, we can quite easily see many reasons for R(ADIR) to be 0 - this simply means that there are no new cases today (essentially) The most likely reason for no new cases? SOCIAL DISTANCING

          1 reply 2 retweets 7 likes
          Show this thread
        5. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 16 May 2020

          Assuming - without any evidence whatsoever - that R(ADIR) = 0 means immunity is simply wrong It is possible (with a vaccine) that this could be the case, but it is by no means plausible

          1 reply 2 retweets 8 likes
          Show this thread
        6. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 16 May 2020

          On to the FOURTH big mistake: multiplying weirdly Basically they used that linear extrapolation to find that R(ADIR) = 0 when total cases/1,000 = 6.6, and then assumed that since this meant immunity, the other 993.4 people must've been exposed to COVID-19pic.twitter.com/MoH05TDwkZ

          1 reply 2 retweets 7 likes
          Show this thread
        7. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 16 May 2020

          This is nonsensical. Even taking their entire approach at face value, the correlation between these two variables was only r^2 = 0.22 It is, again, simply wrong to just multiply the values out like this, because quite clearly there is more going on

          1 reply 1 retweet 11 likes
          Show this thread
        8. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 16 May 2020

          There are numerous other errors in the study, but I think I've made my point If I were the author or the journal, I'd retract the study immediately But that's just me

          3 replies 0 retweets 27 likes
          Show this thread
        9. End of conversation

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