On 2021-09-03 11:57:20, user Lardo wrote:
For the sake of saving vaccine doses, sure, this study makes sense. It just seems to me, the problem is largely that not enough people are willing to take vaccines, not the shortage. Even in Israel, where the vaccination rate is among the highest in the world, it's nowhere near ~70% that's required for herd immunity.
On 2021-08-30 07:23:22, user Martijn Weterings wrote:
The point of vaccination is to *prevent* infection.
Acquiring natural immunity is *not* doing that, because it is equal to getting the infection (and thus it does not prevent infection, it only prevents future secondary infections).
With this I am not saying that vaccination of young healthy people is necessary. That is a different comparison of risks. I am arguing against the argument of 'natural infection being a good way to prevent infection'.
On 2021-09-09 14:15:40, user 4qmmt wrote:
First of all, the infection rate per 100,000 or per million is meaningless unless you know the exposure rates.
The raw numbers do tell a significant story. In all of August, 375 vaccinated died, 218 unvaccinated died. 62 of those who died had already received their third shot! 75% of the deceased were 80+. Their ages were as follows: 90+ = 197, 80-89 = 248; 70-79 = 111; 60-69 = 39; 50-59 = 17, 40-49 = 3, 30-39 = 1.
In recent years, Israel averages about 125 in deaths per day. Average life span is 83 years. So more than 70% of the deaths were among those at or well beyond the average life expectancy.
This also tells us that at least 158 people >70 were unvaccinated; at least 47 people >80 were unvaccinated. Why were 80+ year-olds not vaccinated? Are these "anti-vaxxers?" Not likely. Much more likely, they are people with poor health who would have been equally in danger from the vaccine.
More importantly, how do we know they died from Covid? Positive tests are extremely inconclusive without symptoms and even then, may be due to influenza, something that the MoH reports is responsible for an average of 16 deaths per day (496/mo) in Israel in people with co-morbidities.
In fact, of the 593 deaths in August, 57 died 30 days or more after they tested positive, 7 more than 4 months after testing positive. 67 people were already in the hospital before they ever tested positive. Did these people all really die from Covid?
In summary, there is much more going on than simply' vaccines work' because the rates/100,000 are relatively low. That is misrepresenting reality.
Saying "every legitimate analysis shows that the risks of being unvaccinated are far far far greater than any risks of vaccination" is mispresenting reality.
In what age group? In men 16-19, there are no small number of studies showing great risk from the vaccine with little to no risk from Covid. MoH's own data says chance of myocarditis, potentially deadly, is 1 in 6,347. Yet, chance of 10-19 year-olds dying from Covid is less than 1 in 40,000.
On 2021-09-10 19:28:25, user Hucello Chuyucello, PhD wrote:
I did not say that there is no comorbidities in tested model, I said INTERACTION. The group that received vaccine looks overall less healthy.
On 2022-01-04 12:51:47, user Jerry Hicks wrote:
What makes you think that mutations on the nucleocapsid are anymore stable than the mutations on the spike protein? At least with the spike protein the mutations are limited by it being able to interact with the ace2 receptor. The nucleocapsid as far as I know has more degree of freedom to change confirmation with regards to it's protien fold.
Also the T cell epitopes for alpha, Delta, and omicron have all been the same so your last comment couldn't be any more false.
On 2021-10-14 04:42:40, user gzuckier wrote:
They did not, however, match subjects according to "dead from first exposure to covid" which is what the other things are only proxies for.<br /> Given that the vaccinated group's actual test being scored is "death from first exposure to covid" you can see that this is a problem.
On 2021-09-15 17:20:34, user James Smith wrote:
No, OP is correct. It's the other way around. Fully vaccinated people are at a 6x greater risk of a breakout infection than unvaccinated people with a prior natural infection. So fully vaccinated people have a 6x greater risk of catching covid. Of course 6x is a little deceiving because both groups are much less likely to catch covid than someone who is unvaccinated and has never had covid.
On 2020-05-22 16:02:44, user Ivan Berlin wrote:
There are more health care workers among those who tested positive for SARS-CoV2 than among those who tested negative (31.14 vs 14.27 %). Health care workers are more likely to be non smokers or former smokers. Did you look at the association of current smoking prevalence and being health care worker? Being health care worker may confound the observed lower current smoking prevalence among SARS-CoV2 positive individuals.
On 2022-01-10 09:28:33, user RBNZ wrote:
How can there be 83 covid related events in the unvaccinated population (n=11)? 3 of the unvaccinated had "No chronic disease", does that mean that 8 had chronic disease? This would be a significant confounder due the small size of the unvaccinated.
On 2020-04-22 12:04:06, user Katri Jalava wrote:
Nice. You could add a figure/map 1c with the current case load or prevalence. Also, would like to know the result of how your model fits to current data. Ie. has the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak in Africa and India followed your conclusions, that cases to Africa came through airtraffic from Europe and in India transmission has been mostly within the country.
On 2020-10-23 20:18:59, user María José wrote:
I do believe that this article is so interesting, as it combines the biological and clinical basis in once article. I just want to say congratulate them. On the other hand, I have some questions about your article, the first one, why didn't you include Anexina V? The second, the final part of the protocol why was it not controlled and why the sample size wasn´t bigger?
On 2020-08-17 14:11:29, user Aaron J. Courtney wrote:
Is the mask modeling based upon a surgical mask? Have you rerun the model assuming everyone wore N95s? Any eye protection to guard against conjunctiva infection? What factor did aerosol transmission, particularly fecal and urine aerosolization in community rest rooms, account for infectivity calculus? (recall Hong Kong high rise apartment building SARS-CoV-1 outbreak caused by faulty plumbing)
On 2020-09-19 12:32:13, user kdrl nakle wrote:
GO could be toxic to lungs so it is not all clear from this whether this can be avoided in mask design.
On 2021-08-05 20:15:56, user Ultrafiltered wrote:
I would have liked to have seen a non-biased statistical sample set with double blind quality control, n>15, to provide statistically correct results, in addition to Dimich's comments below.
On 2021-09-01 12:32:37, user Anonymous wrote:
Probably not theoretically/logically, however, for the duration of the covid-19 pandemic it was said that asymptomatic people could spread covid hence social distancing etc so should that not also apply now to vaccinated people if asymptomatic spread is a thing?
On 2020-07-09 08:15:09, user Yerlan wrote:
This work has been published in the Electronic Journal of General Medicine, DOI: https://doi.org/10.29333/ejgm/8346
On 2020-08-24 11:06:25, user Atif Habib wrote:
An excellent paper which provided the importance of short birth intervals and the associated factors in the context of Pakistan. The results indicate that lack of contraception and illiteracy significantly contribute to the problem however it is pretty evident that priority should be given to modern contraception which is comparatively a low hanging fruit in comparison to averting illiteracy.
On 2024-02-20 15:54:40, user John wrote:
Chesekes et al (2022) utilise 2 different defibrillators in their trial.<br /> Zoll X series - rectilinear biphasic - 120,150, 200 j protocol<br /> Lifepak 15 - truncated exponential biphasic - 200, 300, 360 j protocol<br /> Both have a 15% variance in actual energy delivered.<br /> Is there consideration to be made to the range of energy delivered to the VC and DSD cohorts?<br /> VC - 200J Zoll 360J Lifepak<br /> DSD - 400J Zoll 720J Lifepak<br /> Should future trials use a single type of defibrillator to remove this as a possible confounding variable?
On 2020-05-04 06:30:08, user japhetk wrote:
This study has serious flaws and I will reject if I were a reviewer.
First, this study doesn't have a control data such as the blood sample of a few years ago. Although, the kit maker advocates the specificity of 100%, various test kits including the innovita's one which championed 100% specificity were already shown to show the inferior data compared with the maker's advocates.
Second, as pointed out,
Tests were done for randomly selected preserved serum from patients who visited outpatient clinics of the hospital and received blood testing for any reason. Patients who visited the emergency department or the designated fever consultation service were excluded to avoid the overestimation of SARS-Cov-2 infection.
SARS-COVID-19 is already known to cause atypical symptoms even in the "asymptomatic" (in terms of typical symptoms of infection) such as stroke, and various other thrombotic symptoms. So, this exclusion criteria is not enough apparently to avoid biased sampling and overestimation.
In Japan, this apparently seriously flawed study without review is reported widely and people even some doctors now say the real fatality rate of SARS-COVID-19 is 0.05%! based on this study (they seemed to have forgotten Japanese patients in the diamond princess ship showed the higher mortality rate compared with age-matched patients of westerners in the same ship). This is a nightmare for the public health of Japan.
On 2021-12-01 22:44:50, user Tom wrote:
The susceptibility of Chilrden was estimated by PCR-Testing alone and has a high variance in the 95-CI. I guess the numbers may be even lower.
On 2021-12-17 11:01:11, user Ctina wrote:
Considering that those with natural immunity have antibodies against other proteins in the virus than just the spike, wouldn’t making conclusions on effectiveness of natural immunity on Omicron based on a pseudotype containing only the highly mutated spike protein be problematic?
On 2021-02-23 15:39:35, user Paige wrote:
Very good point about the PPE! I am also worried people will ease up. I haven't received my vaccine yet, but my family members that are fully vaccinated have definitely been educated by me on how they have to keep taking strict precautions. I am hopeful we will get more answers soon that will at least support vaccinated people being able to see vaccinated people. It's been a long, hard year!
On 2025-09-23 18:11:20, user rhaphazard wrote:
Can you link to the X/twitter thread mentioned here?
On 2021-07-04 13:13:09, user Sebastian Rosemann wrote:
Dear authors,
you write: "For each country we predicted the ‘baseline’ mortality in 2020 based on the 2015–2019 data (accounting for linear trend and seasonal variation; see Methods). We then obtained excess mortality as the difference between the actual 2020 and 2021 all-cause mortality and our baseline. For each country we computed the total excess mortality from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (from March 2020) (Figure 2, Table 1)"
For Germany Table 1 shows 36.000 excess deaths, which makes up 4% increase, suggesting a baseline of 900.000 for March 2020 - Mai 23th 2021.<br /> According to destatis<br /> https://www.destatis.de/DE/...<br /> the yearly number of deaths for 2015-2019 in Germany was always above 900.000.<br /> How can your baseline for a timespan of ~14 month be lower than the actual number of deaths for 12 months within the last years?
On 2020-04-22 20:00:15, user Hamdi Torun wrote:
This is what the paper says. I did not check the policies of the countries, simply checked the correlations based on the date of a particular date.
On 2020-04-10 17:57:16, user Ciprian1979 wrote:
That's why we, in Romania, have been vaccinated 3 times with BCG: as infants and twice in the first grade!
On 2021-07-29 07:39:07, user ncn wrote:
Will this preprint be submitted to a peer-review journal? Wish the research team all the best.
On 2020-07-17 01:54:28, user Born in Akron wrote:
Is LD-RT a widely known specific therapy? This paper does not indicate the type of radiation. X-rays, Gamma rays, proton accelerator, sun lamp? The dose is 1.5 Grays = 1.5 Joules/kg = 150 rad. But the biological effect in rem or Sieverts depends on the type of radiation and duration of the exposure. Even if LD-RT is always, say, X-rays, shouldn't the effects depend on the energy of the X-rays? Unless LD-RT has a unique definition this preprint is deliberately irreproducible, perhaps to gain advantage for patent protection during a worldwide pandemic.
On 2022-01-06 21:58:54, user zlmark wrote:
The interpretation the authors give to what they have actually calculated is highly misleading.
What they compute is the probability of a single transmission event in a *specific place*, whereas in order to estimate the costs of the policy, one needs to compute the probability of a transmission in *any one of the places* of the given type, which is several orders of magnitude larger.
Moreover, they completely ignore the compounding effect, though which even minor differences in R can lead to exponentially growing difference in the number of cases.
So no - 1000 people do NOT need to be excluded to prevent one COVID case - not even close.
On 2020-08-09 16:36:55, user David Leidner wrote:
Posted article says that data are fully available, but no link to the data is provided.
On 2020-04-05 13:34:51, user Jon Watters wrote:
Impressive graphing. But the projections compared by date to what has actually happened in my state, the projections are laughably high.
On 2020-04-01 11:46:11, user Philip Shaw wrote:
Is there any mathematical description of the model available?
On 2020-09-10 21:35:51, user Nadav Rakocz wrote:
This paper was presented as part of the KDD'20 AI for COVID-19 workshop.<br /> A short talk can be found here: https://insights.kensci.com...
Or here:
On 2021-07-29 06:28:47, user Astrid Fuchs wrote:
The household follow up included the development of symptoms, why wasn't this evaluated?<br /> In case unvacvinated cases with symptoms contract to others this would be expected, but would enable to have respective mitigation measures like quarantine.<br /> But the open question is, if asymptomatic vaccinated can contract the virus without knowing which is higher risk to society. <br /> Would appreciate to see a split in symptomatic and asymptomatic too to adress most important question for society, esp. after CDC information this week that their data shows similar infection risk by vaccinated and unvacvinated even when in different setting.
On 2021-02-19 20:04:10, user Jacqueline J Clarke wrote:
Have you confused the symbols lesser than and greater than ? The occupying sentences don't make sense ?
On 2020-04-19 18:00:50, user Shang Tsung wrote:
This so called study is wrong all along.First i am surprised that the authors, among which supposedly there is an epidemiologist fail at the first basic premise of Epidemiology - non-linearity.Even looking back at Spanish Flu there were extremely strong non-linear occurences which do not lend itself to reasonable modeling ante factum.Same thing happened to attemtps to model SARS , then MERS , then Swine-Flu and so on.Also you claim that more elderly actually die from COVID than reported due to not testing, i claim exactly the oppositte, based on the current data.What i mean - in recent publications the lead pathologist of Hamburg , did a series of autopsies on alleged COVID deaths(tested positve post mortem) , what he found out that not a single person died solely or directly because of SARS 2 ! (https://www.mopo.de/hamburg...I "https://www.mopo.de/hamburg/rechtsmediziner--ohne-vorerkrankung-ist-in-hamburg-an-covid-19-noch-keiner-gestorben--36508928)I") strongly beleive that the case is the same for Sweden, just looking at the age structure of the deaths, the great majority of them are above 80, i would be more than curious if they do autopsies on a good number of the those alleged deaths , to check for real death cause.As of today 19.04, Stockholm reported the lowest number of new positive tests in a month, which completely support Anders Tegnell projection, that the Stockhlom peak is already due.
On 2021-01-15 20:36:01, user Yves Muscat Baron wrote:
Could changes in the airborne pollutant particulate matter acting as a viral vector have exerted selective pressure to cause COVID-19 evolution? Medical Hypotheses DOI: 10.1016/j.mehy.2020.110401Reference:YMEHY
On 2021-08-14 19:03:13, user mattbianco wrote:
Extremely misleading statement. PCR is the most accurate test available. It is the antigen text that is less reliable, especially in the first few days of infection.
On 2021-08-12 19:49:26, user Steven Ramirez wrote:
From the preprint:
"Date of vaccination (bucketed). For a given individual in the mRNA-1273 cohort who<br /> received their first vaccine dose on a given date, only individuals in the BNT162b2<br /> cohort who were vaccinated on the same date or within two weeks after that date were<br /> considered for matching. This match helps to ensure that matched individuals reach their<br /> date of full vaccination (14 days after the second dose) on approximately the same date."
This seemingly addresses my point and effectively controls for diminution over time.
Perhaps an explicit sentence in the preprint would help clarify this point.
On 2021-08-11 20:29:39, user S.O.S_1.20.17 wrote:
Me and my husband are both over age 60, (61 and 62) we both had the Moderna shots and we had a very strong response to the second shot, husband had a 102 degree fever, I had a 101 degree fever or possibly a little higher (my digital thermometer wasn't working right, it was flashing). Anyway we had a strong response. My son who is in his 20's also had the Moderna vaccine and works in a busy supermarket. He was exposed to 3 coworkers who had Covid (they were unvaxxed). My son wore an N95 mask to work. He was tested for Covid on July 21st. The tests, PCR and Rapid both came back negative. My husband travels to NYC on public transit wearing an N95 mask. He has not gotten Covid. Vaccines seem to be working well. We are still avoiding restaurants, my son did go out to restaurants a few times with his friends who are now vaccinated.
On 2025-08-27 17:03:43, user Emma wrote:
What is the Asterix on the last bar in the graph in figure 2. I cannot find reference to it
On 2020-04-25 20:17:25, user Pasquale Valente wrote:
The study show also extraordinary good news. Too bad that the <br /> authors do not underline them. So it is good, while we thank them for <br /> the work done, we make clear the positive numbers that can be glimpsed <br /> between the lines. So, as far as I intend to report, the study is based <br /> on two surveys conducted between 21 February and 7 March, which affected<br /> 85% (2812 people) and 71.5% (2343 people) of the population of Vo ' <br /> Euganeo (PD), the town of 3300 inhabitants where, on February 21, the <br /> first death from pneumonia occurred, which was attributed (by whom and <br /> on what basis?) to the SARS CoV-2 infection in Italy. The study not <br /> reported as a case of pneumonia has been defined, nothing regarding the <br /> clinical picture, nor anatomo-pathological disorders. It refers to the <br /> basis of a news item learned in the press (a man 78 years old, <br /> cardiopathic, who went through several shelters in intensive care died <br /> in that sad day. The study seems interested to elucidate, interestingly,<br /> the mechanisms of transmission of the virus and in particular the <br /> dynamics of its onward transmission, between symptomatic and <br /> asymptomatic subjects. The study produces also some useful data. The <br /> prevalence of Sars CoV-2 positive cases was 2.6% (73 positive tests / <br /> 2812 tests) in the first survey and 1.2% (29 positive tests / 2343 <br /> tests) in the second survey on 7 March. How many symptomatic cases with <br /> positive tests? The table show n. 43 symptomatic subjects/ 2812 subjects<br /> tested, equivalent to 0.015%. In the second survey 16/2343 symptomatic <br /> cases were found, that is equal to 0.0068%. Isn't this good news? Only 7<br /> -15 per 1000 inhabitants of Vo' Euganeo manifested fever or cough in <br /> the winter period in a town of Veneto. Meanwhile, the Schiavonia <br /> Hospital, where the man died, was first closed and then reopened as<br /> a COVID hospital. May be this is also a good new. We are preparing at <br /> the best, for the next pandemia. The study claims to have also collected<br /> data on the progression of symptoms and hospitalization of some <br /> subjects. Well, we will look forward to seeing them on a new <br /> paper. <br /> Best Regards
On 2020-04-09 01:55:01, user Emma McBryde wrote:
Thanks for the comment Robert. I am updating my data on imported versus local cases on a daily basis. When this preprint was made, the data were very sparse, and I had to assume undetermined cases were local. I will revise this for any peer-reviewed print. Meanwhile, I would recommend this website for the best publically available data www.covid19data.com.au
On 2021-10-16 23:35:24, user Mike New wrote:
Here is the pertinent question that I would like a straight answer on:
Does the Singapore study suggest that a vaccinated person is more likely to be "asymptomatic" with the delta strain than an unvaccinated person ? yes or no ?
On 2020-06-08 13:40:04, user bvwredux wrote:
Exine. The outer layer of the pollen, it is incredible stuff. Also the "remnants of the tapetal cells" found in the nooks and crannies of the exine layer. Either or both of them may be potently anti-viral for the corona virus -- that's my speculation. There is little pollen in bat caves. See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.go...
On 2020-08-27 11:22:55, user pto wrote:
I thought the index cases of that conference were all local residents of the Boston area. If so, that certainly wouldn't rule out a previous introduction a few weeks earlier. Say when international university students returned to Boston 3 to 4 weeks earlier.
On 2020-04-19 21:40:06, user Chuck Anesi wrote:
The article says the test had 99.5% specificity, so a very low false positive rate. Seems like a pretty good test.
On 2020-04-27 03:23:55, user buzzbree wrote:
Beyond the seroprevelance conclusions of the study which are generally consistent other reports, another very important issue that needs to be clarified by the authors is if the study fully adhered to Good Clinical Practice (GCP) standards.
To be fully compliant with GCP the Stanford IRB really needed to be informed of the the email Jay Bhattacharya's wife (https://www.buzzfeednews.co... "https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/stanford-coronavirus-study-bhattacharya-email)") sent to potential subjects. The email had several erroneous statements- that the test was FDA approved (Its not) and they would know if they were now immune from COVID-19 and would know that they were free from getting sick and could no longer spread the virus. These statements could have impacted subject safety by encouraging riskier behavior (i.e. ignoring social distancing) from the study subjects if they believed that the test was FDA approved and a positive result was definitive proof of protective immunity.
In the Buzzfeed article Dr. Bhattacharya has stated that he did not know about the email or approve of it, but he still had an ethical duty to report it to the IRB when he found out. There is only one line in manuscript stating that IRB approved the study- how the IRB addressed this email should be expounded upon in final manuscript given these new issues that have come to light.
Relevant GCP sections:
"3.3.8 Specifying that the investigator should promptly report to the IRB/IEC:(b) Changes increasing the risk to subjects and/or affecting significantly the conduct of the trial (see 4.10.2).
4.10.2 The investigator should promptly provide written reports to the sponsor, the IRB/IEC (see 3.3.8) and, where applicable, the institution on any changes significantly affecting the conduct of the trial, and/or increasing the risk to subjects.
On 2020-04-18 02:04:32, user Ngallendou Dièye wrote:
This study applies to a single county. Such studies must be conducted in representative communities across a nation or nations, before it can be said to have general relevance.
On 2020-04-19 06:07:39, user Shiva Kaul wrote:
The delta method is not the reason why the CIs don't include zero. (I did some numerical checks and the delta method actually seems fine here.)
The actual reason is their sampling model. They consider their sample of data as biased, since it does not match the known gender/zip/etc. statistics of Santa Clara. They reweight it to correct for this bias, boosting the number of positives considerably. In their model, it would be very unlikely to observe their actual dataset as a truly random sample. So (if you believe their dataset is biased, and that it should be corrected in the manner they propose) your sanity check does not invalidate their CIs.
That being said, while reviewing their statistical appendix, I found another issue, which I've written about in a separate comment.
On 2020-04-19 02:02:27, user defragmentingthecode wrote:
THe CDC's guidelines for reporting Covid19 deaths is "where the disease caused or isassumed to have caused or contributed to death".
I really don't know how accurate any studies are when we don't know how many Covid deaths were assumed, and how many deaths were due to the patient's co-morbidities rather than the presence of virus? Surely, we could have got this bit right?
Here is the CDC link. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/da...
On 2020-05-15 13:19:16, user thxzetec wrote:
This is an interesting study, but not across the finish line. We need a double-blind, randomized study. Right now remdevir (sp?) has taken the lead, this is partly due to profit. I'm not saying it is a conspiracy, but you have a basically generic drug against a patented $$ drug . . . there is reason to study the latter more if you are the maker.
BTW it does not do anyone any good calling Fauci a "liar". The whole problem with our covid19 response is that it has become too politized.
On 2021-07-18 19:04:01, user Jewbacca wrote:
There’s a ton of studies one web search away. Here’s the most commonly cited:
On 2020-03-24 19:18:13, user Luis Cabrera wrote:
In the Extended Data 2, there is another standard curve, instead of "Primer, reporter molecules, target gene fragments, and guide RNAs used in this study. "
On 2022-01-04 08:01:45, user Cathy wrote:
It seems the only valid conclusion from this study is that immunocompromised patients who SURVIVE having covid have similar antibody levels. Not surprising, those that did not likely are the ones who died. You cannot make such a conclusion without measuring the antibody levels in both categories who died. Come on now, don't lead immunocompromised people to believe something you have NOT proven. I sure hope this gets revised before it gets released. It is dangerous.
On 2020-03-30 17:42:47, user Preci Genome wrote:
Digital PCR appears to be a very powerful tool to diagnose the infection of COVID-19.
On 2022-09-08 10:01:58, user Virgínia da Conceição wrote:
Published in the Health and Quality of Life Outcomes journal, DOI: 10.1186/s12955-022-01945-7
On 2021-10-08 15:21:09, user Marco Pellegrini wrote:
This research has been published in a peer-reviewed journal as of October 6th, 2021:
Lucchetta, M., Pellegrini, M. Drug repositioning by merging active subnetworks validated in cancer and COVID-19.
19839 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41...
On 2020-04-03 14:51:49, user Jack Debrueil wrote:
What is the biological plausibility of this association. The ABO-type is related to red blood cells. IT is important to know associaitons with leukocytes and HLA-types. Before concluding anything these reulst must be stratified by HLA-types.
On 2021-08-04 12:24:22, user Will Helm wrote:
regarding the 29 deaths, this number seems under-rated to me. <br /> Guess what, here's a novelty, PEOPLE DO DIE, with or without Pfizer shot. <br /> 29 dead over a six months period for 44'000 people is certainly consistent with the US demographics which actually would yield 230 deaths for all causes. Something's not right here.<br /> Check mortality table
On 2021-08-06 15:18:01, user Robert Clark wrote:
It is notable that the number of deaths six months after the vaccine is not reduced. This might be because the number of deaths due to COVID overall is percentage-wise too small for a difference to show up in this trial.
A question I have is specifically for the elderly cases. Is the number of deaths or life-threatening events higher, lower of the same for that case?
Robert Clark
On 2020-04-12 02:47:16, user Petard Stamo wrote:
I don't understand his twist in his analysis. Initially he insisted that testing is crucial to determine an aproximate value of Infection Fatality Rate. And that in his opinion was the measure which determines how dangerous was the virus. Now he has completely disregarded the number of infections in his analysis. The analysis is based only on deaths partitioned on age and sex and total number of population partitioned on age and sex. What is the difference between P(dying from Covid19 / <65) and P(dying from Covid19 / infected, <65)? How can you say that all people have been infected if we still don't have reliable data about the total number of infections? What proportion of the population has been infected?
On 2020-04-19 21:44:48, user Paul Maxwell wrote:
It is not lax policy, the government has still introduced closures and set restrictions, it is just allowing the people to "do the right thing as adults"<br /> That is a cultural thing.
However, it seems their main goal of "protect" the vulnerable has been a huge failure as nursing homes have been doing nothing in terms of mitigation and now the very people their policies were targeted to protect are copping it.
On 2025-11-06 09:07:37, user Fulya Kirimer-Aydinli wrote:
This manuscript was published in the Current Psychology in September 2025. Here is the link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-025-08270-4
On 2020-06-05 23:05:25, user Amy E. Herr wrote:
*WARNING to READER*: Essential technical information is missing from this PDF which prohibits accurate interpretation and repeatability of the results.There is (1) insufficient evidence substantiating successful 'decontamination', (2) insufficient information on UV-C source and detector, and (3) insufficient information on UV-C dosing. We urge the authors to add these critical details which are represent the bare-minimum for accurate reporting and reproducibility, as further described below:
Claims of “decontamination” do not align with FDA EUA guidance/terminology. FDA guidance on requesting EUAs for respirator decontamination systems define “decontamination” and “bioburden reduction” in terms of specific log-reduction values for specific classes of microorganisms. Because 6-log or 3-log reduction was not always observed or possible to be measured in this study, and no non-enveloped viruses or bacteria were tested, the results do not fall within the FDA definitions for decontamination and bioburden reduction. We suggest adjusting terminology to align with FDA EUA guidance.
Critical information on UV-C source and detector is not provided. Make, model, wavelength emission spectrum, type of UV-C source (e.g., low pressure mercury lamp, LED, etc.), and dimensions of any UV-C bulbs should be reported for the source; make, model, and wavelengths detected are key parameters to report for any radiometer/dosimeter. Because UV-C decontamination equipment is not standardized and measured UV-C dose depends critically on the details of the UV-C source and detector (e.g., whether emitted and detected wavelengths match), reporting these details is critical for accuracy and reproducibility.
Missing details on UV-C dose distribution across the N95. For example, where was the N95 placed within the UVGI device, relative to the UV-C source? Was the ~10% dose permeation observed across all locations on all N95 models? Providing details on characterization of UV-C dose distribution across the N95 is requisite for readers to understand whether a ‘worst-case’ scenario is being modeled.
We thank the authors for their important research efforts on N95 decontamination during this COVID-19 pandemic & look forward to an updated/revised PDF posting.
On 2020-08-20 15:14:43, user Carlo Ferrigno wrote:
How many of the infected had an asymptomatic, mild, severe ,or critical outcome. What is their age and clinical status? It would also be important to know as well. Congratulations for this study.
On 2021-11-29 12:50:35, user Eleutherodactylus Sciagraphus wrote:
BMJ has further information regarding this case: https://www.bmj.com/content...
On 2020-04-08 14:37:18, user alexishmatov wrote:
Problem of high or low AH is not a problem
The recent study has shown that problem of high or low AH in timing respiratory infections may be resolved by using the physical effect in the airways (supersaturation and enhanced condensational growth in the airways).
The main sense of the supersaturation in the airways is that this effect depends simultaneously on both temperature and RH of inhaled air. Thus, temperature and RH are the parameters of one simple function — it is the effect of supersaturation.
Ishmatov A. Influence of weather and seasonal variations in temperature and humidity on supersaturation and enhanced deposition of submicron aerosols in the human respiratory tract, Atmospheric Environment, V. 223, 2020, 117226, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.a...
On 2025-10-13 15:16:10, user François Lecoquierre wrote:
Hi, it looks like legends in Fig 3 have been shuffled (plots a, b, c have their legend under f, g, h)
On 2020-07-05 11:40:53, user OxImmuno Literature Initiative wrote:
On 2020-04-05 01:22:40, user stephen zhang wrote:
See its associated journal publication in Psychiatry Research:
On 2022-03-27 12:21:47, user helgarhein wrote:
To bring my immune system into best working order I would want to be vitamin D replete for some months or years. (Similar to the finding that it took 5 years of 2000 IU daily to reduce the incidence of auto-immune diseases, Hahn et al BMJ, Jan 2022.) This trial lasted only 6 months, but, crucially, we are not told when the optimal blood level was reached. Only once the optimal level for immune health has been reached should an assessment happen. This is 75 nmol/l. Some individuals might need more than 3200 IU to reach it, some might even reach it in the 800 IU group. Could this subgroup be assessed: Those who achieved the defined sufficient 25(OH)D level across all 3 groups? Did this ‘replete’ group have reduced incidence of Covid infections?
On 2020-04-25 04:04:36, user Deevish N D wrote:
The radiometer used in this study - UV513 AB detects a peak wavelength of 365 nm as per its manual. But the actual germicidal wavelength is around 254 nm. I believe the dose needed for UV disinfection has been under-reported in this article. Authors please correct me if am wrong.
On 2020-06-14 10:14:23, user Donna Barstow Draws wrote:
Let me know if you find a source! Because I'm sure there is none. Outside indeed...
On 2020-08-29 09:10:30, user Brenda White wrote:
Can forehead testing affect brain or glands in the head?
On 2021-09-09 11:59:48, user Mohammad Ali wrote:
Please find the published version here: https://link.springer.com/a...
On 2022-01-12 21:42:47, user Bill Johnson wrote:
Exactly the opposite. Did you read the paper, or just the abstract? If the paper, you should have noticed that the tables and figures at the end (notably Tables S8 and S10) contain exactly this kind of information and more.
On 2022-01-14 04:06:37, user Sir Henry wrote:
Why are the hazard ratios above one for vaccines in Table 2?
On 2022-01-13 13:55:45, user Kirk Kelln wrote:
IMPORTANT DATA ERROR in "Table 2: Demographic and clinical characteristics of cases tested in outpatient settings with SGTF and non-SGTF SARS-CoV-2 infections", line "Hispanic 7,762 (6.6) 23,894 (45.8) 1.29 (1.24, 1.34) 1.26 (1.21, 1.32)" The percentage of Hispanic is stated as 6.6 but this is incorrect. Should be about 45.9%. Thanks for this interesting report!
On 2020-10-18 11:36:53, user Benjamin Himes wrote:
Nice ideas, I hope it matures into some useful tech. There are a few holes in the experimental design (or at least the presentation of such.)
Full review is accessible on Zenodo.
On 2020-10-27 16:42:24, user Kamran Kadkhoda wrote:
Again no good panel of confirmed common CoVs to exclude cross-reactivity especially to an Ab like IgM with poor affinity maturation.
On 2021-06-19 15:42:33, user TB wrote:
The data in Figure one is duplicated. The 'left orbitofrontal cortex (thickness)' data is the exact same at the 'left superior insula' data.
On 2022-09-22 09:16:27, user Wera Pustlauk wrote:
Dear authors,
thanks for the valuable effort to set up a new assay for the determination of PPi.
Regarding table III samples remained somewhat vague to me. Clarification in the table header including the unit of the determined PPi might be helpful. Calculation of the standard deviation in addition to the average would make the data more roboust and would establish a more substantial link to the variability discussed in the paragraph before. Moreover, time differences in the addition of EDTA to the CTAD tubes as discussed in the text should be clearly stated for each sample in the table III as well.
In addition, a hands on protocol (stored in a repository or as supplement) allowing the direct usage of the assay based on the optimized procedure would make the usage more accessible.
Best regards,<br /> Wera Pustlauk
On 2021-01-27 06:24:26, user Michael wrote:
DL+DiReCT including the trained model of DeepSCAN is also available on github: https://github.com/SCAN-NRA...
This method for cortical thickness estimation is mentioned in the manuscript and refers to https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm...
On 2021-03-24 14:52:53, user Pedro Negreiros wrote:
The paper is of good quality. The results need , however, be reproduced by other researchers.
On 2021-07-21 14:27:41, user Enrique Zielli wrote:
Can someone explain this to a simple citizen vaccinated with Sinopharm?
On 2020-10-28 08:35:30, user Rasmus Skov Husted wrote:
The final peer reviewed article is published open access - please follow this link: https://bit.ly/3mrLlvZ
On 2019-10-11 18:31:08, user Miguel wrote:
Interesting paper. It is really usefull to understand how P4 concept spread all over the world.<br /> RBMFC performed and published an special number about Quaternary prevention concept. Was lead by Marc Jamoulle and he encourage people from all over to send manuscripts. The year of the publication was 2015. That probably caused the increment of titles duriing this year. 2015 was also the year of the Iberoamerican Family Medicine in Uruguay. It was attend for an important number of P4 leaders ( included Jamoulle). Finally you must know there are a lot of publications (grey literatura) that are not allowed to be published. And the leadership of the P4 WONCA international gruop is in Uruguay.
On 2020-10-30 18:25:19, user gatwood wrote:
I suspect there could be a strong corellation between vaccination status<br /> and following a strict adherence to all COVID anti-infection <br /> guidelines, PPE etc... Experienced and medically trained Drs and nurses<br /> more likely have been vaccinated and also are more likely to follow PPE<br /> wearing and careful anti-infection routines. Support staff (food <br /> service, assistants and claening staff) with less formal medical <br /> training and understanding of infection are probably less likely to be <br /> vacinnated and also may be less likely to carefully employ all technical<br /> anti-infection measures. Would this account for the vaccinated folks <br /> having less COVID infection?
On 2020-06-01 16:31:45, user OxImmuno Literature Initiative wrote:
On 2022-03-14 08:16:14, user Timothe Menard wrote:
The published version is now available in Therapeutic Innovation & Regulatory Science, the journal of the Drug Information Association.
On 2020-09-28 14:47:49, user Screamin_Jay wrote:
If saliva testing accuracy has been demonstrated to be equal to the nasal swab method, why subject patients to the uncomfortable nasal swab? Why is, then, all testing not saliva-based?
On 2021-02-15 13:07:34, user Guido wrote:
State, local governments & complicit media simply ignore this, as unions help shut down rank and file "health & Safety Committee" walkout/sickout strikes. Our Creative Class is speciously distracted by blatantly staged shock & awe by an autocratic duopoly as the most vulnerable are intentionally exposed to the mutated strains, before vaccination is properly evaluated.
On 2020-05-11 01:40:27, user Lewis G wrote:
Is it possible that this result indicates that COVID-19 is more often than not a saliva borne disease?
On 2021-04-17 14:48:15, user Mansour Tobaiqy wrote:
This manuscript has been published in:
On 2021-04-21 15:08:18, user Rafael wrote:
Interesting work. We also found Prevotella sp. associated with COVID-19 severity in https://www.frontiersin.org...
On 2022-04-19 13:42:56, user Matthew MacLeod wrote:
This document was peer reviewed and published by Defence Research and Development Canada, which does not provide DOIs, so cannot be linked to by medRxiv. Permanent link to the citation record is here:
https://pubs.drdc-rddc.gc.c...
And PDF of the final version is here:
On 2022-07-08 05:23:36, user Adrian Campos wrote:
This manuscript was published in November 2021: https://www.nature.com/arti...
On 2021-05-10 15:04:07, user Zsofi Igloi wrote:
article has been published in Emerg Infect Dis. 2021;27(5):1323-1329. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid...
On 2021-06-26 16:12:33, user Daisy wrote:
Why on earth wouldn’t they include all age groups? Or at least those 60 and up, who have lower immune response.
On 2020-06-16 00:09:43, user Andrew Cohen wrote:
Johann,<br /> That's a good question, one that I've been thinking about since China's mass-testing event in Wuhan last month. My answer is long, so I've posted it at www.bioinvasions.com/covid-.... –Andrew
On 2021-02-17 13:49:48, user David McAllister wrote:
The latest version of this manuscript has now completed peer review and been accepted for publication by the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.
On 2020-03-21 21:07:21, user Elisabeth Bik wrote:
Cross posting a concern I also posted on PubPeer.
The protocol for the treatment was approved by the French National Agency for Drug Safety on March 5th 2020. It was approved by the French Ethic Committee on March 6th 2020. The paper states that patients were followed up until day 14, although I don't see any data from day 14 in the paper.
Since the paper was submitted for publication on March 16 in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, the 14 day timeline seems to be impossible. Could the authors clarify how this statement in the Procedure matches the 10-day interval between ethical approval and preprint submission? <br /> "Patients were seen at baseline for enrolment, initial data collection and treatment at day-0, and again for daily follow-up during 14 days."
On 2021-04-15 00:06:12, user fra setch wrote:
Anti-spike IgG glycoprotein for Covaxin in Phase 2 trial was 65%. And this trial was done on only 96 Covaxin participants. Something doesn't seem right about this.
On 2020-05-31 22:34:08, user Maria Ribando Burmaster wrote:
Good study. I would be interested in comments from MDs and epidemiologists as well as other working scientists.
On 2021-02-01 15:59:31, user Victoria Gates wrote:
What about the studies done by the FLCCC Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance? They present strong evidence to the contrary.
On 2022-02-25 06:26:07, user Abhishek Mallela wrote:
As of February 24, 2022, Figure 5 in the published version of this manuscript is missing axis labels. Please refer to the preprint version of Figure 4 for the axis labels.
On 2024-02-26 17:17:08, user Ciarán McInerney wrote:
Please, justify why<br /> statistical significance of individual values in your omnibus PheWAS protocol<br /> warrants an indication of predictive performance? Firstly, looking at main<br /> effects in an omnibus assessment commits the Table 2 fallacy (doi: 10.1093/aje/kws412).<br /> Secondly, the p-value associated with an odds ratio is a statistic related to<br /> the validity of the parameter estimate in a hypothetical null world. It can and<br /> should only be used for making statements about the model used to estimate the<br /> parameter of interest (in your case, the odds ratio). It has nothing to do with<br /> the quantifying the association. Thirdly, why do you select features based on the<br /> p-value but not the magnitude or direction of the association statistic to<br /> which it refers? A feature with a very large magnitude might be clinically<br /> meaningful for many patients, regardless of how spread the distribution of that<br /> feature’s values are.
On 2021-04-09 15:08:14, user Martin Bleichner wrote:
We read this preprint in our journal club and have collected some comments I would like to share.
Overall, we liked the approach and the straightforward message of the paper. <br /> Comments regarding the paradigm<br /> • Do you control somehow for word length? In the given example, “swift” is shorter than “swrfeq”. <br /> • Are word combinations repeated? I.e., do participants see ‘swift horse’ as well as ‘swrfeg horse’? In that case, participants may remember that they saw a similar item before. Hence, memory could play a role<br /> Controls and Patients<br /> • The ACE-R scores overlap between the two groups (range controls 83 – 100, range MCIR (64-99). Isn’t it then surprising that the results in figure 8 show such a good separation?<br /> Signal Analysis<br /> • The ERP subtraction was only done for the cap. Based on those results, it was concluded that it does not make a difference, and hence this approach was not used for the cEEGrid data. Since the segmentation of the ERP components depends on the data quality that differs between the two devices, this transfer might not be valid.<br /> • It is stated that the lexical retrieval effect is absent in the MCI-group, but in figure 3, the alpha rebound, for example, seems to be present in both groups to some degree. Furthermore, in figure 4, the main difference between the conditions (bottom TRF) is between 600 and 800 msec), i.e., exactly before the alpha rebound kicks in (around 800 msec figure 3). <br /> Comparison Cap cEEGrid<br /> For Figures 7 and 8, individual electrodes were used. It would be interesting to know how variable that was across subjects and how often the different electrodes were chosen. Furthermore, given that the results of the individualized electrodes and standard electrodes are comparable, it would be interesting to see the spectra of all channels. <br /> • The electrodes used for referencing and re-referencing are not completely clear to us. Unfortunately, different people use different names for the electrodes A layout-plot of the cEEGrids with indications of gnd, ref, etc. would be helpful.
Figures<br /> • The figures are difficult to compare to each other (different units [% signal change for the cap, but t-values for the cEEGrid] in same-colored color bar, different time axis, etc.) E.g., in figure 6 Top TRF x-axis is from 0 to 1.4, Bottom TRFs from 0 to 1. Figures are differently scaled along the x-axis.<br /> • Please indicate in the figures the important time points (word off-set, onset, etc.)<br /> • Explain the ROC-curve in detail. What data goes in exactly? Should be added to the method section.
On page 20 the is a space missing between “The” and “current”.
On 2021-05-06 16:08:18, user leonolting wrote:
why is there no information about hospitalization at this point
On 2020-09-14 12:51:47, user Iván Williams wrote:
Simple and useful methodology, thanks. I think there is a lag of two weeks between onset and death, so maybe the estimated stock could be lagged too.
On 2020-06-08 21:45:38, user Paul Gordon wrote:
Nevermind, I see that it's in GISAID now as Thailand/Bangkok-CONI-0018/2020
On 2021-12-26 04:38:16, user anon wrote:
12 (95%CI 1, 7) Is this an error?
On 2021-12-27 21:14:28, user Danes wrote:
Any comment on the huge discrepancy in pre-risk between vaccine and COVID groups in Table 1? Does not seem to be appropriate for this type of comparison.
On 2020-04-22 14:52:42, user Philippe BROUQUI wrote:
This unpublished paper raises serious doubts about the scientific value of research
Missing data <br /> This is a retrospective study on medical records carried out on 12 health care centers in the Ile de France. There is no missing data on the 19 basic variables out of the 181 patients followed in these centers which is remarkable when known that the main drawback of retrospective studies is precisely the loss of information. This is important because it can skew the reported balance in both groups. For example, it seems unlikely that the "Child B liver cirrhosis or more yes/no" data was found in retrospect in all computerized medical records in this study. It probably lacks the "I don't know." This casts doubt on the reality of the retrospective nature of the data collection.
Inclusion criteria O2 to 2l<br /> This criterion is in line with the HCSP's recommendation and included in Decree No. 2020-337. However we see oxygen was at 2l/mn in 50% of patients with extremes of 2 to 4L/mn which appears to be more of a criterion of inclusion adapted to the law than clinical reality.
Excluding patients who received HCQ 48 hours after inclusion.<br /> But above all, we have been be surprised by the fact that among the control group there are in fact 8 patients out of 97 who received hydroxychloroquine but after 48 hours. In the final analysis they are removed from this control group. This is a scientific misconduct because these patients should have been included in the treaties and not in the controls.
This likely changes the results and may even be the balance of groups in terms of comorbidity
On 2025-06-23 20:40:10, user FletchKennedy wrote:
This write-up in Nature News (linked below) makes some good points. The creators of Otto-SR call it an "end-to-end agentic workflow using large language models (LLMs) to support and automate the SR workflow from initial search to analysis," but then they really only talk about the screening and data extraction processes. They also indicate that they used the pre-existing search strings when re-running the Cochrane Reviews.
I'm not saying that speeding up the screening and data extraction processes aren't valuable, they are; but building a proper Cochrane search string can take months. Saying you did 12 work-years of traditional systematic review work in two days is a pretty bold claim when you're really only doing two parts of the process.
On 2020-07-14 13:01:28, user Hedda von Rosa wrote:
Was selenium considered and if so what was the rationale for not including in the protocol?
On 2020-05-31 07:59:11, user ashkan homayuni wrote:
I have noticed a preprint entitled "covid-19 in iran, a comprehensive investigation from exposure to treatment outcomes" <br /> I have read the article and noticed authors mentioned that during 22 feb to 5 march, 100 patients with covid-19 were included; however I working as an internist physician in YAS hospital (where study has noted to be consucted in) have to report you that we had only 46 cases during above mentioned period of time. I am so concerned about reliability and honesty of the data presented by authors and I am afraid that it may subject to data falsification or data duplication.
On 2020-05-11 09:04:29, user S. V. wrote:
what about people who had measles/rubella in childhood? Are they protected also, since they also have the antibodies?
On 2020-05-11 11:49:19, user Medicos Lk wrote:
According to the data four SARS-CoV2 virus strains are circulating among Sri Lankan Covid-19 infected patients.
On 2022-04-13 12:35:52, user Josué OUEDRAOGO wrote:
Hello! Thank you for this work.<br /> How can i get your dataset?
On 2020-06-08 18:27:55, user Alpesh Pansheriya wrote:
Herd Immunity is meaningless in India.
On 2023-12-12 14:56:43, user Tanmoy Sarkar Pias wrote:
This paper has been accepted to an IEEE conference. A link (& DOI) to the IEEE Xplore will be added when this article is published. Please see the following copy right details of IEEE..
2023 26th International Conference on Computer and Information Technology (ICCIT), 13-15 December, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh
979-8-3503-5901-5/23/$31.00 ©2023 IEEE
On 2021-03-07 09:48:53, user Pencroft wrote:
On 2021-01-25 18:59:34, user janomila wrote:
None of the citizens of Slovakia was informed about this research.<br /> - nobody signed the informed consent.<br /> - no voluntariness - blackmail under the threat of lost labor.<br /> Are anyone interested in the Nuremberg Codex???<br /> No, money are money. <br /> Who cares about human rights?
On 2021-08-11 01:10:22, user dustinst22 wrote:
proof of what? That vaccination has lowered the CFR?
On 2022-01-24 16:27:09, user Mary Ellen Mackesy-Amiti wrote:
Published: January 12, 2022 https://doi.org/10.1371/jou...
On 2021-08-28 16:03:15, user Grammymidge wrote:
Hate to say but with how the US political machine is working to push the vaccine and affecting the Medical research community and leaders (i.e., the Surgeon General) here I have suspect of any finding produced in a US study that is opposite of findings in other parts of the world (i.e., Isreal). The latest Israeli study is based on a higher population, ~46,000, then what was used in this. The metrics of the study show that natural immunity provides a higher protection then the vaccine. But it does indicate the natural immunity coupled with one does of vaccine provides the individual with slightly higher protection against Delta. I found it very informative and worth a read.
On 2021-10-08 20:58:14, user AbsurdIdea wrote:
Referring to "However, if prior infection does not afford protection against some of the newer variants of concern, there is little reason to suppose that the currently available vaccines would either.": The mRNA vaccines are targeted specifically to the "spike". There appears to be no information as to what the infection used or uses to identify the virus, and thus while new variants have a "spike" and likelihood of maintained resistance there is zero evidence of what natural immunity would or would not recognise in a variant. Thus the argument provided has no substance.
On 2020-06-03 21:44:59, user Renee Arnold wrote:
Interesting study, but I have 2 comments: one is that I think the ICER (cost to avoid one death) is incorrect--I get $103,053,306. The other is a question--how did the authors derive that loss of one life = loss of 10 QALYS? Seems a rather simplistic transformation from cost avoidance to cost per QALY..
On 2020-05-23 10:21:54, user Dave wrote:
Corresponds with all the other studies done worldwide.
On 2025-07-03 22:24:25, user Madison Gammill wrote:
This is harmful information. Taking numbers of how many people got COVID-19 immunizations and the number of people that died within the given timeframe is the epitome of correlation is not causation. The "non-COVID-19" death group is defined as deaths that did not have an ICD-10 label of COVID as the primary or underlying disease. This implies that any death could've been accounted for in this group, including car accidents, trauma, old age, etc. There is no way to infer that the vaccine causes death without tissue samples, pathology, etc. Not just putting numbers on a graph. Also, any valid study should have a control group. Period. The whole point of this study was to determine if the vaccine causes deaths, and not including unvaccinated people throws these results out the window.
On 2021-05-14 10:40:29, user NABIL ABID wrote:
i am really happy to be part of this project, including more than 100 African researchers. Thanks to all collaborators to provide high quality paper.
On 2020-04-24 14:46:54, user Russel Future wrote:
THis is a really important article. Reports from New York hospitals also show evidence of positive outcomes using heparin to treat Covid-19. Reuters article, re. experiences at Mt. Sinai hospital, New York:<br /> https://www.reuters.com/art...
SARS-Cov-2 virus seems to cause small blood clots to form in lungs. Reports indicate Mt. Sinai using new protocol where dosages of heparin above typical prophylactic levels are now given to patients before lung blood clots are detected.
On 2021-04-29 19:23:16, user ohminus wrote:
No reference to the national testing strategy? The assumption that asymptomatic people are mainly treated unter OuS is questionable, given how many are tested under the national testing strategy.
The notion that 50% is a low predictive value is likewise questionable. If anything, given the low prevalence in an asymptomatic population tested without any reason to suspect COVID infection, 80% is a questionably high positive predictive value.
On 2021-05-09 20:43:42, user Tiago Pereira wrote:
Great work! Very very important piece of information. I would suggest to calculate the 95% predictive interval, the range of incidence expected in 95% of the populations. See: Ioannidis JPA, Rovers MM,. et al. Plea for routinely. presenting prediction. intervals in meta-analysis. BMJ Open 2016;6:e010247. I don't think the weights from the random-effects model are 100% appropriate. It would be nice to have a sensitivity analysis via a "fixed-effects" model with weights proportional to the (approximate) number of people in each of those populations.
On 2021-10-10 04:45:03, user kdrl nakle wrote:
10+% of unvaccinated got COVID. Excellent argument for mandatory vaccination of HCW.
On 2021-06-16 22:10:09, user Alberto wrote:
What the figures show is not well explained in the abstract or the text itself. Basically they show that people who were previously infected had a level of antibodies at baseline (prior to vaccination) which is roughly equal to those not previously infected after two doses. After one dose, they exceed that level.
Furthermore it also shows that most of the persons not previously infected don't benefit from a second dose, since the average is roughly the same after one and two doses. Only a small subset of the subjects seem to get some benefit from a second dose.
Therefor, it seems a more logical conclusion that persons previously infected should not need to take the vaccine and that people previously infected should take just one dose (with a few exceptions).
Always remember that in medicine, when you need to take something you should take it. But when you don't need to take it, you shouldn't take it.
On 2021-12-03 01:31:09, user Alex Johnson wrote:
This analysis did not address infection after vaccination, which we know is happening with Omicron. I'd like to see the rate of reinfection compared with the rate of breakthrough infection, before I get too excited about reinfection.
On 2022-06-30 16:10:17, user Dr. D. Miyazawa MD wrote:
I would like to see the analysis broken down by age every 10 years. Otherwise, it is no surprise that the third vaccination is more likely to be given to the elderly and the elderly are more likely to be hospitalized or die!
On 2021-04-15 10:01:38, user NA wrote:
What's going on with the publication status? It's been five months and we are in pandemic: why has not the review been completed more expeditiously? What journal was it submitted to?
On 2021-04-24 05:57:03, user Sohaib Ashraf wrote:
Natural honey
On 2020-04-29 19:07:05, user Sinai Immunol Review Project wrote:
Keywords: SARS-CoV-2, ACE-2, Renin-angiotensin system, Hypertension
Main findings: The authors analyzed clinical data obtained from COVID-19 patients and categorized them based on the antihypertensive drugs they were taking. They then investigated its association with morbidity and mortality of pneumonic COVID-19 patients. ARBs were found to be associated with a reduced risk of pneumonia morbidity in a total of 70,346 patients in three studies. They found that in the elderly (age>65) group of COVID-19 patients with hypertension comorbidity, the risk of severe disease was significantly lower in patients who were on ARB anti-hypertensive drugs prior to hospitalization compared to patients who took no drugs. Also, through their meta-analysis of the literature, the authors reported that ARB anti-hypertensive drugs were associated with a decreased risk of severe disease in elderly COVID-19 patients.
Critical Analyses:<br /> 1. Retrospective study with large potential for confounder bias. <br /> 2. Their inference that ARB is better than other anti-hypertensive drugs is based on literature met-analysis.<br /> 3. P-values could not be computed for some subsets because of very low/no patients in these categories(ref to table-1;ACEI, thiazide and BB)
Relevance: Anti-hypertensive ARB drugs taken by COVID-19 patients prior to entering the hospital may be associated with improved morbidity and mortality of pneumonia in elderly COVID-19 patients although confounders may bias results.
Reviewed by Divya Jha, PhD and edited by Robert Samstein, MD PhD, as part of a project by students, postdocs and faculty at the Immunology Institute of the Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai.
On 2022-03-02 17:00:41, user Carol Taccetta, MD, FCAP wrote:
Re the severe disease (hospitalizations), I posed a question to the corresponding author: does Table 11 from NY's Pediatric COVID-19 update (link below) reflect admitted FOR covid or all comers (admitted FOR + WITH covid)? There appears to be a similar table (Table 1) in this pre-print.
Table 11 is described within the link below as "Examining new hospital admissions with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, per Table 11:", yet it does not specify a differentiation between admitted for and admitted with covid-19:
On 2020-07-10 16:14:28, user Copernicus wrote:
Hosting lectures with many students in an indoor environment, based on recent scientific guidance on small particles, will not be easy and the solution seems to be mostly online. virtual and tutorials. The questions then arises why should students pay high fees. best to delay until next year and let students take a gap year!
On 2021-02-08 15:46:37, user Werner Bhend wrote:
This study is helpful. But what is unfortunately missing is a detailed age analysis of the hospitalized patients and especially of the intensive care patients. This would allow conclusions to be drawn as to whether herd immunity is really needed or not. Covid 19 is clearly less dangerous for non-risk patients and I would have liked to see a comparison with influenza in the healthy age group 0-65.
On 2024-08-13 07:22:59, user Christine Markwalter wrote:
The peer-reviewed version of this article can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1011442
On 2020-12-03 16:15:54, user Marc Rafael wrote:
Any news about peer review or publishing?
On 2021-02-16 15:48:05, user Malik Sallam wrote:
This preprint is now published in vaccines journal:<br /> https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3...
On 2020-04-02 22:11:27, user Zvi Herzig wrote:
Several comments on this study in PUBPEER:<br /> https://pubpeer.com/publica...
On 2020-07-02 20:07:46, user RT1C wrote:
This looks questionable to me. You can't calculate years of life lost based on life expectancy tables! We know that comorbidities are the key drivers of COVID-19 mortality; age, adjusted for comorbidities, is a minor factor. Thus, one really needs to adjust the life expectancy for any comorbidities present. For example, if the life expectancy of an individual in the tables is 75 years, but that individual suffers from obesity, COPD, CVD and diabetes, then independent of COVID-19, their life expectancy is significantly lower. Assume, for example, it is 65. Then if they died of COVID-19 at Age 64, their years of life lost is 1 year, not 11. Your methodology, which fails to account for comorbidities, overestimates years of life lost, possibly by a large margin.
On 2020-05-10 15:28:39, user Daniel Corcos wrote:
Dear Thomas,<br /> My first point was on the delay between infection and death, which is different from the fatality rate. Assuming a shorter time between infection and death will lead to the wrong conclusion that lockdown has no affect.
In addition, there has been almost no social distancing before lockdown in France, and therefore an effect should be observed.
On 2021-06-14 20:50:49, user Sheila Lewis wrote:
glad to peruse and know it's always good enjoy fresh air and sunshine away from dense crowds...thanks! sheila
On 2020-04-16 20:15:01, user alg3257 wrote:
Will an N-95 mask be safe if it is used once and then left to sit for a week then used again?
On 2021-06-17 16:13:50, user Hao Yin wrote:
Note: Contents in this draft are our preliminary results. The final results of this study are published on the journal, Lancet Planetary Health, please check out our online peer reviewed paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/S25...
On 2020-11-03 23:04:46, user David Markun wrote:
Nice study. Copy edit: " If we instead look after September 1, 2002" should refer to 2020.
On 2021-05-27 10:15:21, user Qian Dong wrote:
Code is now available through: https://github.com/s0810110...
On 2021-06-17 19:58:09, user Marco Roccetti wrote:
We thank Maurizio for the careful reading of our paper and his interesting comment.
We do agree that elections and workers are two factors of a certain relevance that, besides school reopenings, deserve attention and further investigations. We have already maintained this in our paper (abstract, limitations, discussion, conclusion).
Nonetheless, Maurizio should give more credit to the following facts:<br /> - elections were held on two different days (sun 20 and mon 21), hence the number of participants should be distributed over two different days<br /> - Italian students and school personell (11 million people on a national basis) go to school each and every day (mon-fri/sat)<br /> - Mobility reports by Google tag workplaces (Google News. https://news.google.com/cov... "https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=it&gl=IT&ceid=IT%3Ait&mid=%2Fm%2F03rjj)")<br /> The revised version of our paper, which is going to appear on a renowned International medical journal, discusses all those points above.
Sincerely,<br /> The Authors
On 2022-07-08 18:42:46, user Fre Feys wrote:
page 8 COVID-19 Severity Reinfection Study:
... eligible for inclusion in the primary-infection cohort, provided that the individual received no vaccination before the start of follow-up, 90 days after primary infection.
So if some of these people got vaccinated after 90 days, they are not solely on natural immunity. So what do the authors asses then? Authors should clarify if all -or what proportion- in the primary-infection cohort remained unvaxed during the 14 months follow up. Same remark goes for the matched infection-naïve cohort.
On 2020-04-12 13:10:55, user Vipin M. Vashsihtha wrote:
From where did you get the data on India's population? It is not 1541 million but 1378 million!
On 2020-04-16 20:32:36, user Tom Sakmar wrote:
With respect to UV decontamination, as noted earlier, it's not possible to use a UV-A/B meter (280-400nm range) to quantify the UV-C dosage from a germicidal LED (260-285nm). The dosage is clearly being underestimated. This is a major flaw. The preprint should be taken down and revised.
On 2021-06-10 14:58:00, user J.A. wrote:
Figure 2 is reporting 80mg/kg cumulative HCQ dose, which is approx. 10 days of HCQ dosing. A Cox regression with a time dependent covariate (of HCQ use) would be a better analysis.
On 2021-09-12 21:59:19, user Swapnil Hiremath wrote:
<reposting with="" minor="" edits="" as="" disqus="" thought="" last="" one="" was="" spam="" for="" some="" reason=""><br /> The authors have undertaken an ambitious project: briefly, taking numerators from the VAERS database, denominators from vaccine numbers from elsewhere. They then perform a ‘harm-benefit’ analysis looking at COVID hospitalization as the only harm. The whole analysis is restricted to the 12-17 age group in whom the concern of myocarditis is admittedly higher.<br /> They report a risk which was anywhere from 1.5 to 6.1 times higher for vaccine associated myocarditis vs COVID causing hospitalization. Vaccines must be bad, surely.
However, several problems are quickly apparent.<br /> 1. The rate of myocarditis is much higher than the ones reported in Ontario: 160/million for 12-15 males compared to 72.5/million from Ontario (which includes Moderna as well - which has higher rates of myocarditis than the Pfizer/BioNTech). Why would this be so? There are many possible reasons, including the overestimation from VAERS being probable cause. On a perusal of the supplement, there are many which are other viral diseases which could be the reason; additionally many descriptions are quite vague (‘the doctor told us troponin was elevated’). It is very easy to submit cases to VAERS, so the numbers reported could be an overestimate - proper case ascertainment with source documents is necessary to be sure of the cases. Needless to say, simple arithmetic to derive 'rates' is also problematic. The VAERS website specifically suggests the numbers should *not* be used for estimating rates.
3.Next, the authors make many assumptions when it comes to who had comorbidities and who did not among the children, and multiply numbers to come up with some crude estimates. It would be useful for a pediatric diseases researcher to assess these assumptions. The 40% assumption of children hospitalized 'with COVID' and not due to COVID is a very crude untruth that the authors and others have needlessly perpetuated on social media with little foundation.
Most importantly, the authors assume that hospitalization is the only bad thing for children who develop COVID. Some 12-17 years olds have died due to COVID, and some may have had a 1 day hospital stay - their analysis treats these equally and incorrectly. Some teens developed MIS-C. Some developed longer term sequelae. To group them under ‘hospitalization’ seems overly simplistic. Similarly, from perusing some of the vaccine-myocarditis, many seem to have recovered with symptomatic care alone. The authors seem to be minimizing COVID and maximizing vaccine associated adverse events.
It should be noted that the involvement of children in the first two waves seems to be different than the one we have seen in the last 2 months with delta (for whatever reason - perhaps with lower immunization numbers in these).
Lastly, the pandemic is not yet done. Many more children are going to get COVID in the next few months and years. We are going to have many more hospitalization, morbidity and sadly many more deaths. There will be long term morbidity and sequalae. We do need better data to assess the risks and benefits. This study is not it.
Unfortunately this study has been picked up uncritically by media and will worsen vaccine hesitancy. This seems unwise in the face of an ongoing pandemic.
On 2020-08-03 08:21:45, user Meead Saberi wrote:
The paper is now published here: https://doi.org/10.3389/fph...
On 2020-10-18 23:05:10, user Joe B wrote:
Would have been interesting to also examine use of fentanyl, dexmedetomidine and propofol in these patients. Also, since there is no IV formulation of melatonin available (we had the IND for it), presumable oral melatonin was used. The bioavailability of it is very low, about 15% (already published data years ago). So, the doses used would have been important to know also. Sort of shocking that P&S is using so much in terms a atypical antipsychotics in patients who presumably have ICU dementia, generally not recommended by SCCM guidelines.
On 2020-04-01 22:22:34, user Sui Huang wrote:
Nice, important work. Question: Mechanical ventilation has been associated with increase of ACE2 expression in the lung post-mortem. Do you find support for this previous finding in your data?
On 2021-08-25 12:07:48, user Prof. W Meier-Augenstein, FRSC wrote:
What other than the difference in antibody titer post-vaccination and post-infection is the take-home message of this study? Surely, the decline in antibody titer per se months after vaccination or primary infection is not a surprising finding but could be expected? Antibodies have a finite life-span given by their Ig specific half-life (for example 21 days for IgGs). In the absence of a subsequent challenge (e.g. by a secondary infection) antibodies formed in response to the challenge posed by vaccination or primary infection will have all but cleared from serum after 6+ months. Furthermore, the difference in antibody titer between mRNA vaccinated and SARS-CoV-2 infected could not have come as a big surprise either considering mRNA vaccination results in expression of spike-protein “only” which means in contrast to a viral infection host cells are actually not infected and do not reproduce copious amounts of the virus which will take longer to fight and clear from the body than the spike protein. For the same reason, macrophages (phagocytes) are unlikely to be involved in the mRNA vaccinated group to the same degree as they are in the group infected by the virus. The natural decline of IG antibodies produced in response to the mRNA vaccine does not offer an exclusive explanation for breakthrough infection. Instead, breakthrough infection occurring 146+ days post vaccination are most likely the result of a “perfect storm”, an unfortunate coincidence of the higher virulence of the Delta variant of <<7 days incubation time, the associated higher viral load produced, and the fact the production of neutralising antibodies by B-memory cells takes up to 4-5 days to reach its peak.
On 2025-03-09 21:02:55, user Dr. DP wrote:
Dear authors,<br /> Will this article be peer-reviewed/is there a path to peer-review being explored?
On 2020-11-06 10:28:28, user kdrl nakle wrote:
This is like saying that eating in rooms with more than two tables is associated with obesity. Absurd.
On 2025-05-28 15:43:41, user Peter Fino wrote:
This paper has now been published in the Journal of Neurotrauma with a slightly revised title. The citation for the peer-reviewed publication is below.
Fino PC, Antonellis P, Parrington L, Weightman MM, Dibble LE, Lester ME, Hoppes CW, King LA. Objective Turning Measures Improve Diagnostic Accuracy and Relate to Simulated Real-World Mobility/Combat Readiness in Chronic Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. J Neurotrauma. 2025 Mar 26. doi: 10.1089/neu.2024.0127. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 40135290.
On 2021-08-11 18:35:08, user UGApaul wrote:
So, should we therefore assume that by reducing mutations, that vaccines or immunity in general, reduces the potential for new variants of concern?
Such thinking would run counter to our many decades of understanding of flu.
It is not necessarily important that vaccines might reduce the numberof mutations, what is important, is whether there already exists, variants that can partially escape immunity and/or there exists a sufficient mutation rate within a partially immune population to generate future variants that can escape immunity.
Delta is most likely a classic benefactor of antigenic drift in a partially immune population.
On 2023-06-01 12:17:00, user Anne-Marthe Sanders wrote:
A peer-reviewed and published version of the article can be found at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.go...
On 2022-01-27 00:09:31, user Autofan1 wrote:
Something seems to be fundamentally wrong with this study - because empirical observations tell exactly the opposite story: much more people have been infected in low relative humidity environments.
The best examples are...<br /> 1) ...the large Covid-19 outbreaks in meat producing companies in Germany (cold and dry air = very low RH).
2) ...the typical spread of the annual flu virus, where most people are infected in spaces with dry air (offices, public transport...) which is dominant indoors during European winter time.
And vice versa the rate of infections in high humidity environments has been negligible.
E.g. public swimming halls and SPAs are high RH and no mass infection events have been recorded in these areas at all, although people are not wearing masks and are regularly talking to each other with little distance.
So either the interpretation of the measurements are wrong - or there is a mechanism in human air intake that causes low RH environments to be more infectious.
Since this study has the potential to influence the behaviour of a large population (with potentially negative consequences) it would be a good idea of the authors to once again verify the interpretation of their findings.
On 2025-08-28 17:40:53, user gzuckier wrote:
Just a typo of some sort, I assume, but<br /> "-0.85 (95% Cl: [-0.48 --0.37]) for dose 3" can't be correct.
On a related note, however, I can't avoid a nagging suspicion of bias from the fact that some of the estimates used to support <br /> "concerning evidence of a higher-than-expected fetal loss rate" <br /> are not statistically significant is missing from the paper and must be intuited by the reader, as in <br /> "1.9 (95% CI: 0.39-3.42]) for dose 3";<br /> particularly when it's specifically noted with respect to estimates involving COVID infections <br /> "all the 95% CIs of the respective observed-to-expected differences included 0 (Table S8)."
The main findings, however, do not have this problem.
My humble suggestion is to include these other findings as "suggestive but not reaching statistical significance."
Or perhaps, since the results given for week 14 seem to be significant but are diluted by nonsignificant later results, that should be pointed out?
On 2021-02-04 21:24:38, user Charles wrote:
I am a bit unsettled by the days they decide to pick to get their best (around 90%) estimate.
They use the daily rate from day 1 to 12. Day 1 it's .028% and average until day 12 is around .041% (there is a spike in infection from day 1 to 12). Day 21 is .004%, day 22 is .011%, day 24 .006%, i.e. there is some standard-error. <br /> Now, it's all about which days one picks. <br /> - if one calculates Expected as being day 1, the best effectiveness rate is 86% on day 21, but on day 22 it dwindles at 61%...<br /> - if you use day 1 to 12 as Expected, effectiveness rate is around 85% on day 24 and 73% on day 22. <br /> - to get the 90% in the paper, you need to pick day 21 (the lowest incidence, that went up again the next days) and the Expected as days 1 to 12 (the highest incidence).
It seems that efficiency estimate does improve over time, but reaching 90% depends on which days one picks, both in term of "actual" and "expected". This choice might very well explain fluctuations between 60% and 90%, i.e. the estimate is very sensitive to small numbers and differences. Differences with previous estimate might be methodological (no proper control group).
On 2021-02-16 06:28:51, user Robert Clark wrote:
I’m looking for the safety data specifically for senior citizens after the second dose. Pfizer hasn’t released it.
Robert Clark
On 2020-05-05 00:24:27, user Marc Imbert wrote:
The dosage is twice higher then the protocol raoult , without blood analysis to follow up toxicity apparently. The disparities between the groups are high with negative conclusion to be expected.
From figure 3 and 2, we can deduct that 56% (23/41) patient in the high dosage group and 35% (14/40) of the lower dosage group are in intensive care at enrolment. Not discussed in the study, although it has a clear impact on lethality, and CK.
A pertinent critera to look at, 51% hypertension profile in high dose CQ at enrolment, while the comparative group has less. To note, it is the exact figure ( and the highest) associated with the " poor clinical result outcome" in Roult's 1064 series ( with HCQ) and the "death outcome" the Chinese reference study without HCQ.
There are certainly more investigating data to explore out of this study,
On 2020-04-07 18:43:25, user Ethan Obie Romero-Severson wrote:
This article has been published in EID https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/a...
On 2020-06-09 05:14:54, user Dewey wrote:
Why were they hospitalized if they were asymptomatic?
On 2020-05-03 00:49:59, user chess wrote:
Pr Raoult claimed that HCQ had an anti viral effect at the onset of the infection.<br /> So HCQ would also have an effect on cytokin storm later ?<br /> It's a fact that mortality rate 0.4% is very low at IHU_Maseille and someday we will discover why.
On 2024-03-25 10:04:24, user S wrote:
Interesting study, however, the authors failed to reference previous studies that externally validated the PCE and Framingham risk models among patients in the UAE. By not referencing such validation studies, the authors missed an opportunity to provide additional context and strengthen the evidence supporting the use of these risk models in their study population. It is important to acknowledge existing literature to ensure the robustness and reliability of the study's findings.
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj...<br /> https://doi.org/10.1186/s12...
I extend my best wishes to the authors for a successful publication.
On 2020-06-23 19:20:17, user addie wrote:
The article states that patients receiving mechanical ventilation were ten years younger than those not receiving respiratory support - this implies that ventilators were being rationed? Can the authors speak to this.
Thank you.
On 2021-02-04 09:44:55, user Sepp271 wrote:
Taking into account the 7-day incidence of that region (Munich) and the number of tests taken, about 1 or 2 positive cases would have been expected when similar testing would have been done in general population. Taking dark number of incidence into concern this figure goes up to roughly 2 or 3.
Therefor within this study one can not state that the observed number of positive cases of 2 found in primary schools, kindergartens and nurseriesis is significantly different from the infection numbers in the general population.
It would have helped if the authors had made a strict comparison of both groups including statements about the confidence interval.
On 2020-02-12 18:53:53, user S.T wrote:
Table 2 has a typo(I presume). It states the time window is from 25th December 2010**
On 2020-06-18 23:37:52, user Florin wrote:
There was no mention of Japan, Taiwan, or Hong Kong, countries and territories which have successfully dealt with the pandemic without doing lockdowns. Taiwan didn't close its schools. Japan didn't do much testing or tracing. Hong Kong was late in imposing a complete travel ban. The only common and early responses to the pandemic in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea was universal mask wearing and a decrease in large gatherings.
On 2021-06-05 13:55:27, user Tim Winton wrote:
Would it be possible to see the code for this?
On 2021-12-09 20:54:49, user El Fabsterino wrote:
Interesting stuff. The sample sizes are very, very small, though. I'd refrain from using p-values here at all. I'm not sure the suggested statistical test (Student's t-test) to test for differences in the means is even applicable here. The original data is clearly not normally distributed and transformed into a 0/1 Bernoulli-variable by defining an arbitrary threshold.
On 2020-11-26 05:48:46, user Community Medicine with velz wrote:
Re-infection can be defined only by viral genome sequencing. The implication of these results can be mis-leading as re-infection has been defined by RT-PCR in this study.
On 2020-06-18 07:05:58, user Anton De Spiegeleer wrote:
A revised version of this manuscript is available in pre-proof in the Journal of Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine (JAMDA): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.j...<br /> This reference can be used for citations.
On 2020-07-18 18:45:51, user James Truscott wrote:
Hi, I think there is an error in the model as laid out in Supplementary Text File 1. The variable z represents all non-susceptibles, which includes the infectious-infected , y. The rate of loss of immunity term in equation 1 is gamma*z, but infectious individuals presumably don't have immunity to lose. They first recover (at rate sigma) and then can lose immunity. The term in equation 1 should therefore be gamma*(z-y). This change will affect the algebraic result, probably, and may change the dynamics significantly at some time points and/or parameter values.
On 2020-03-17 19:20:48, user RealConspiracy wrote:
And what about "-" Rh-factor?
On 2020-10-21 14:08:08, user Darren Brown; HIV Physiotherap wrote:
The EUROQoL EQ-5D-5L self-reported health related quality of life (HRQOL) measurement tool has been used for statistical purposes, however this baseline data of EQ-5D-5L scores across 5 domains (health status) and index value are not reported. This would be useful data to understand the HRQoL of the sample, with respect to population normative data (https://euroqol.org/eq-5d-i... "https://euroqol.org/eq-5d-instruments/eq-5d-5l-about/population-norms/)").
On 2021-10-01 02:28:35, user Clemens Hlauschek wrote:
Thanks for your response. Using terms such as 'life expectancy at birth for 2020' is highly misleading, regardless of your field's justification and history of such usage. I don't think the short clarification sentence in your Introduction section is appropriate, given the immense political and societal interest: With such work, as scientists, you are not only communicating to your field, but to a wider public, the mass media, and decision makers, which are all prone to use badly communicated science results to justify potentially detrimental policies. Communication throughout the paper, but especially in the abstract, while formally correct (from what I can tell), is nevertheless misleading with regard to a wider audience, and could easily be, from my perspective, be formulated much better, to deliver a more honest and objective message.
Also, I am missing references, discussion, and comparisions with important related work. I remember reading studies in the early weeks of the pandemic about estimates of life years lost due to Covid with results in the order of up to 2 digit numbers per Covid victim. Putting your results in perspective with prior, intuitively much more pessimistic results, would provide important insights, as far as I can tell.
The comparison with WW-II effects should either be left out, or clarified in detail / put into exact perspective. To what extent is the Covid-19 pandemic comparable with the losses of life in WW-II? How different exactly are the distances between WW-II effects and different pandemics compared to Covid-19? Is Covid-19 closer to previous pandemics of the last decades, or to WW-II? How much closer? We are speaking of the extermination of 6 million Jews (all age classes), countless Gypsies, Homosexuals, Handicapped, ... and the killing of many more, mainly young, soldiers; death of millions of other civilians due to starvation, diseases, mass-bombings, massacres. How do the demographic bumps in the population curves compare with the bumps created by WW-II? Drawing the WW-II comparison the way you do it, and thus implicitly communicating all these associations, sounds quite alarmist to me at best, and, at worst, puts you in the category of Holocaust deniers.
Thank you for considering and addressing these points.
On 2021-08-23 21:24:22, user Stuart wrote:
Published in JCI Insight, here: https://insight.jci.org/art...
On 2021-08-06 07:17:04, user disqus_UQJEvw3dWd wrote:
Dear Dr Austen El-Osta,
We read with interest this preprint article “What is the suitability of clinical vignettes in benchmarking the performance of online symptom checkers? An audit study”. Studies addressing the suitability of different evaluation methods are useful, and vignettes methods in particular have known advantages as well as known shortcomings (Fraser et al., 2018; Jungmann et al., 2019). Further detailed analysis into the overall utility of vignettes methodologies is certainly important. Whilst the approach taken for exploring vignette methodologies here is interesting and warrants reading and careful consideration, two aspects of the study conduct and reporting are deeply worrying.
We ask for the authors to correct aspects of the paper where there is unequal and unbalanced methodology applied to the funder symptom checker (Healthily), as compared to those applied to the symptom checkers of the funder’s competitors (Ada and Babylon).
We also ask that the authors report results in a balanced manner in the abstract. All outcome measures should be reported fairly, irrespective of whether the funder’s symptom checker performed well in any particular measure. Please see below for a detailed description of these aspects.
We do not state that the selective application of methodology and the selective reporting of results has been deliberately conducted to bias the study to the benefit of the funder. However, the degree of different treatment of the funder’s symptom checker is so large, that an independent reader could draw that conclusion. We suggest rectifying the highlighted issues in the preprint, and, before submitting the manuscript for peer review.
Should these issues not be addressed in any future peer review process, we will in due course, also write to the editor of the publishing peer review journal.
Major concern 1 of bias towards study funder: The paper not only assesses the utility of a methodology, it also applies that methodology to report on relative performance of different symptom checkers (i.e. benchmarking).
This approach would be fair if the same methodology were applied to all the symptom checkers, however, the study presents a grossly unmatched analysis. One approach has been used for the funder’s symptom checker (Healthily) and a second for the symptom checkers of two main competitors of the funder. This gives the appearance of fundamental bias in testing and reporting based on study funding. Although some degree of bias may be introduced in studies for a multitude of reasons, deliberate application of fundamentally different testing methodologies to the products of the funder compared to those applied for their competitors is unacceptable. The Healthily symptom checker was tested with 6 inputters (4 professional non-doctor & 2 lay), whilst, for no rational justification, the Ada and Babylon symptom checker were tested with a testing group of fundamentally different make-up (not just the number of testers, but a systematic and deliberate choice to use a different type of tester population, i,e. 4 professional non-doctor inputters).
The number of tests also differed greatly (n=816 for Healthily, vs n=272 for Ada and Babylon). Additionally, only one professional non-doctor inputter recorded the consultation outcome and triage recommendation using Ada and Babylon symptom checkers, for all 139 vignettes, which is in contrast to the approach the authors adopted for Healthily.
Major concern 2 of bias towards study funder: There is also an important bias in selecting the results in the abstract. <br /> With respect to condition suggestion: In the results section, it is reported that “Ada consistently performed better than Healthily and Babylon in providing the correct consultation outcome in D1, D2 and D3” (i.e. in the provision of correct condition suggestions). The difference in performance was large: “The correct consultation outcome for Ada against the RCGP Standard at any disposition was 54.0% compared to 37.4% for Healthily and 28.1% for Babylon”. It is acknowledged in the abstract that condition suggestion (referred to as disposition/diagnosis) is a main outcome measure, however this measure is not reported in the abstract. This looks like selective reporting in the abstract to avoid negative messages about the funder’s symptom checker.
With respect to ‘triage recommendation’:<br /> It is reported in the results that “In benchmarking against the original RCGP standard, Healthily provided an appropriate triage recommendation 43.3% (95% CI 39.2%, 47.6%) of the time, whereas Ada and Babylon were correct 61.2% (95% CI 52.5%, 69.3%) and 57.6%, (95% CI 48.9%, 65.9%) of the time respectively (p<0.001). Again, this is omitted from the abstract, where only the aspects of the relatively positive performance of the funder’s symptom checker are reported.
We would welcome a change in this study to remove bias towards the funder in methodology and results reporting.
Yours faithfully
On behalf of Ada Health GmbH<br /> Dr. Stephen Gilbert<br /> Clinical Evaluation Director<br /> Ada Health GmbH<br /> Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 1<br /> 10178 Berlin, DE <br /> +49 (0) 152 0713 0836
REFERENCES
Fraser, H., Coiera, E., Wong, D., 2018. Safety of patient-facing digital symptom checkers. The Lancet 392, 2263–2264. https://doi.org/10.1016/S01...
Jungmann, S.M., Klan, T., Kuhn, S., Jungmann, F., 2019. Accuracy of a Chatbot (Ada) in the Diagnosis of Mental Disorders: Comparative Case Study With Lay and Expert Users. JMIR Formative Research 3, e13863. https://doi.org/10.2196/13863
On 2020-06-12 19:34:13, user Amr Sawalha, MD wrote:
Nice work. The lack of association in the HLA region is very interesting given the perceived exaggerated immune-mediated response in patients with severe COVID-19. Genetic studies looking at patients with confirmed cytokine storm will be of interest in this regard, and of course a closer look at the epigenetics of immune-response genes will be of interest.
On 2021-10-29 17:15:41, user kdrl nakle wrote:
This is a very troubling report as we really need to differentiate "regular" deaths from the ones that are consequence of (and caused by) vaccination. This report is vague on that and it is going to be used against vaccination, no doubt.
On 2024-10-09 13:29:30, user disqus_foVd2sEK3I wrote:
Really nice work. Could you please share the accompanying code to reproduce these results? Thanks.
On 2020-12-27 18:54:51, user Travis Cesarone wrote:
This is odd, PN Medical has suggested cloth masks cause hyperventilation. <br /> This drastically lowers CO2, constricting blood vessels in the brain, leading to severe anxiety. N95s and surgical masks are associated with hypercapnia which can cause confusion and disorientation.
This should be interesting in peer-review.
https://www.pnmedical.com/b...
Individuals have a false sense of security that masks are protecting them. This 'security' has not been quantified in any study, so it is false. Therefore, there is a false increase in mental health due to a severe fear of the virus.
On 2023-06-21 18:28:21, user Wim van Drongelen wrote:
Now published in Communications Biology doi: 10.1038/s42003-023-04696-3