17/n But forgetting that, this is a classic example of the ecological fallacy You CANNOT assume that country-level obesity rates apply to the people who got COVID-19 - if you don't check that this is true, whatever you produce is basically nonsensicalhttps://medium.com/@gidmk/why-you-might-be-wrong-about-covid-19-the-ecological-fallacy-e8a47a030902 …
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18/n On top of this, the outcome measure is terrible. There is no attempt to clarify whether the reported deaths from Our World In Data are correct for the country, simply the assumption that Algeria and France have comparable death reporting systems
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19/n The ecological fallacy is at play in terms of death rates as well - deaths/million is a meaningless measure if you don't take infections into account!
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20/n In short, the website fails in every possible way: - not a trial - entirely observational - countless errors - numerically meaningless - arbitrary decisions
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21/n Again, I am not here to litigate people's intentions - I'll leave that to others - but I will say that this is remarkably similar to the trash science produced by tech bros in the first few weeks of March No understanding of the underlying issues at all
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22/n Whatever your opinion on HCQ - whether you are pro or for - you cannot conclude anything of value from this website It is misleading and wrong
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23/n The discussion section is also, it must be said, a sight to behold They defend their decision to use the term "country-randomized controlled trial" despite CONTRADICTING THEMSELVES (countries deciding is by definition NOT RANDOM)pic.twitter.com/CVmzKGNCoc
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24/n We already have a term for this kind of research - observational ecological study - so as I said, inventing a new term that is wrong is simply misleading. Just use the correct terminology if you're going to do something like this!
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25/n If nothing else, the most basic additions that would make the website slightly less worthless would be - details of statistical analysis - measure of HCQ CONSUMPTION by country - deaths BY INFECTION as the outcome - control for other govt measures to prevent COVID-19
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Are there? Have you actually looked at how many people got HCQ by country?
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