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GidMK's profile
Health Nerd
Health Nerd
Health Nerd
Verified account
@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 26 Nov 2020

      5/n Well, the obesity rates were taken from the CIA Factbook This is manifestly inappropriate. The factbook was last updated in 2016 for these figures and mostly references reports that are 6+ YEARS oldpic.twitter.com/nWGQSW7k3l

      2 replies 1 retweet 41 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 26 Nov 2020

      6/n I'm not sure what meaning we could take from correlating COVID-19 deaths in August with obesity rates from 2012, but it's certainly not a lot

      4 replies 3 retweets 52 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 26 Nov 2020

      7/n The physical inactivity data was taken from the WHO's global data repository, which was updated in 2018. This is better, but it's still aggregating data from vastly different surveys done in different ways in different countries across the worldpic.twitter.com/0aKHzPObyX

      1 reply 1 retweet 34 likes
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    4. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 26 Nov 2020

      8/n The government stringency index was taken from Oxford data, which you can see here. You can see some problems with this almost immediately as wellpic.twitter.com/ofuXIpmACy

      1 reply 1 retweet 27 likes
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    5. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 26 Nov 2020

      9/n For example, in August (when this study compared countries), Australia was rated as 75/100 on the stringency index. This is because one state of the country (Victoria) had extremely strict restrictions in place

      1 reply 1 retweet 34 likes
      Show this thread
    6. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 26 Nov 2020

      10/n But for most of Australia, life was largely back to normal (except for travel) by August! Similarly, India is given a stringency index of 81(!) even though the response there varies quite a bit by states as well

      3 replies 1 retweet 35 likes
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    7. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 26 Nov 2020

      11/n Which brings us to a more central issue with this entire analysis - the ecological fallacy I've written about this beforehttps://gidmk.medium.com/why-you-might-be-wrong-about-covid-19-the-ecological-fallacy-e8a47a030902 …

      4 replies 6 retweets 50 likes
      Show this thread
    8. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 26 Nov 2020

      12/n Simply comparing COVID-19 death rates at the national level with some population-level indicators is a pretty pointless thing to do no matter how you do itpic.twitter.com/IKQkpgFZbU

      2 replies 3 retweets 53 likes
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    9. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 26 Nov 2020

      13/n What possible meaning can you garner from the fact that the latitude of the barycenter of some countries correlates with their COVID-19 death toll as of August 31st?

      2 replies 1 retweet 27 likes
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    10. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 26 Nov 2020

      14/n Even worse, the authors made no attempt to control for the age distribution of those infected in the population, which as we know very well by now is the biggest defining factor in the death rate from COVID-19

      2 replies 3 retweets 51 likes
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      Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 26 Nov 2020

      15/n Also, the authors note that reverse causality may be an issue when interpreting the correlation between COVID-19 deaths and economic intervention, but don't make this point for the stringency index even though it's probably exactly as problematicpic.twitter.com/HTc3sr4dId

      9:02 PM - 26 Nov 2020
      • 1 Retweet
      • 28 Likes
      • Etienne Balli Jim Profit #VaccinesWork blah ¡Will! P.J. Shapiro fanatla (Saint's Fan account/cuenta de fan) Cassandra Complex _katiesaurus_
      1 reply 1 retweet 28 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 26 Nov 2020

          16/n Also, the fact that the authors call this "the least uncertain" data is pretty wild, because a) it isn't and b) the least uncertain sources are TERRIBLE for many countries so WHY USE THEM AT ALL????pic.twitter.com/EaRFI0TcSK

          2 replies 1 retweet 30 likes
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        3. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 26 Nov 2020

          17/n Ultimately, I cannot see how you can take home anything from this research aside from the fact that some country-level measures recorded years ago correlate well with COVID-19 deaths and some don't

          2 replies 1 retweet 36 likes
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        4. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 26 Nov 2020

          18/n I feel like @TylerVigen should create a new version of the Spurious Correlations website with COVID-19 deaths so that people can see just how pointless all of these ecological studies really are

          6 replies 9 retweets 67 likes
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        5. End of conversation

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