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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 Feb 22

      4/n Essentially, to know whether glasses make you less likely to catch COVID-19, we'd need to know whether people with glasses caught the disease less than people without glasses Simple, right?pic.twitter.com/1GxB0YwOuD

      1 reply 3 retweets 54 likes
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    2. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Feb 22

      5/n Ok, back to the study What did the author do? Well, the asked 304 people with COVID-19 whether they wore glasses most/all of the time. 58 (19%) said yespic.twitter.com/ct1P60oIgK

      1 reply 8 retweets 52 likes
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    3. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Feb 22

      6/n Then, the author took the proportion of Indian adults estimated to wear glasses from a paper in 2019, to compare this sample topic.twitter.com/tYRVgFZElZ

      1 reply 4 retweets 49 likes
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    4. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Feb 22

      7/n So far so problematic. You can't just compare to an out-of-study population like that, it makes no sense at all. If nothing else, the comparison group is for the whole of India, while this survey was done on a tiny subsample in one hospital 😬

      1 reply 7 retweets 104 likes
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    5. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Feb 22

      8/n But then, we get to these calculations, which are described as "the risk of [catching] COVID-19" in glasses wearers vs non-wearers But...that's just incorrectpic.twitter.com/bkyRhQkwT3

      2 replies 6 retweets 56 likes
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    6. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Feb 22

      9/n What the author has done here is compare the rate of glasses wearing in COVID-19 patients to the rate of glasses wearing in the general populationpic.twitter.com/wwC3Mw2qHQ

      2 replies 7 retweets 65 likes
      Show this thread
    7. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Feb 22

      10/n What this calculation actually gives you is the likelihood of wearing glasses in COVID-19 vs non-COVID-19 people In other words, what we've got here is the relative risk of glasses-wearing behaviour in COVID-19 patients compared to everyone else

      1 reply 11 retweets 113 likes
      Show this thread
    8. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Feb 22

      11/n So not only is the study a tiny cross-sectional survey with no appropriate comparator, it's also not calculating what the headlines (and conclusions) say it is at all

      1 reply 7 retweets 73 likes
      Show this thread
    9. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Feb 22

      12/n What the headlines should say is that COVID-19 patients are 2-3 times less likely to wear glasses than the general population, based on a small, biased survey But I doubt that will get as much attention, because it's a bit meaningless

      1 reply 22 retweets 118 likes
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    10. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Feb 22

      13/n Here is the conclusion of the study. This is not correct based on the methodology as described:pic.twitter.com/SRaHx0zzZ8

      3 replies 6 retweets 54 likes
      Show this thread
      Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Feb 22

      14/n Oh and in case anyone was wondering, according to Altmetric the study has been in 51 news articles so farpic.twitter.com/dSFahe908r

      3:58 PM - 22 Feb 2021
      • 6 Retweets
      • 80 Likes
      • 高遠 Lady_Magpie Seth zumi🏳️‍⚧️bumi Matt Whitehead Jennifer Colbourne, M.Rcc🦜🏳️‍🌈🇨🇦 prog Bowring Heather on the Hill
      10 replies 6 retweets 80 likes
        1. (((Dorit Reiss)))‏Verified account @doritmi Feb 22
          Replying to @GidMK

          Oh, well. There goes my hope that my eyeglasses are a magic shield.

          0 replies 0 retweets 4 likes
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        1. James Beedle‏ @ThoughtlessDeed Feb 22
          Replying to @GidMK

          what if I had eyeglasses but refuse to wear them, for, ah, reasons?

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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        1. Undafiend|Foundation‏ @undafiend Feb 22
          Replying to @GidMK

          Aside from the offensive absurdity of this article, seems likely (though ultimately redundant) that glasses-wearing, as opposed to glasses-needing, relates to SES, which in turn means less exposure. (Or not. That's why it should be a real study.)

          0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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        1. moose‏ @mizmoose Feb 22
          Replying to @GidMK

          wishful thinking sells ads and subscriptions

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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        1. Proud European from Austria 🇪🇺 🇦🇹  🌏‏ @e2dot7182818284 Feb 22
          Replying to @GidMK

          Another example of Brandolini's law.

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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        2. Zach Binney‏ @binney_z Feb 22
          Replying to @GidMK

          My favorite part? The author literally refused to provide any demographics for that single-hospital sample. Just a placeholder for Table 1! So we can't even see how different this super-selected sample might be from the gen pop. Unreal that this is getting media play.

          1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
        3. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Feb 22
          Replying to @binney_z

          Yes I love the placeholders (table 2 goes here)

          0 replies 0 retweets 4 likes
        4. End of conversation
        1. Tom Andrews 💙‏ @0bj3ctivity Feb 22
          Replying to @GidMK

          🤦‍♂️

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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        1. Kate von Goeler  🦜‏ @kvongoeler Feb 22
          Replying to @GidMK

          OK OK - but I’m still going to keep wearing my glasses.

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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        2. Anson  🚫 🍊 💩!  🌊  🇺🇲 🏳️‍🌈  ♻️ 🔬 ⚛️‏ @AnsonThePantsNJ Feb 22
          Replying to @GidMK

          Without reading the article, it sounds like the hypothesis was around glasses acting as a physical barrier to droplets entering the eye. Too many variables like lens size & shape, distance worn from the eye, and average surface area of eye that's exposed.

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
        3. CJ Moose  ⚒ 🌋 🦉 🍻  😷‏ @cjmoose Feb 23
          Replying to @AnsonThePantsNJ @GidMK

          Or in my case, I seriously need my glasses adjusted but haven't been to the eye doctor because of the pandemic. They fall off my face even without wearing a mask (when I'm at home) and they are utterly useless when double-masking at work.

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
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