Today's News (2020/6/3): COVID-19 Edition
Jun. 3rd, 2020 03:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdRemember COVID19? Yep, still a thing.
----- 1 -----
Who’s wearing a mask? Women, Democrats and city dwellers
June 2, 2020
By Mariel Padilla
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/whos-wearing-a-mask-women-democrats-and-city-dwellers/
As states continue to lift restrictions that were put in place to curb the coronavirus outbreak and as Americans start going out in public again, recent surveys suggest that gender, political affiliation and education level are factors that have a bearing on who is wearing a mask, and who isn’t.
Public health officials have recommended wearing masks in public when social distancing measures are difficult to maintain, such as in grocery stores and pharmacies, and at least a dozen states have required them in those circumstances. And most businesses that are reopening are doing so with restrictions: fewer customers, social distancing and face masks.
According to a Gallup poll that was conducted in mid-April, only one-third of Americans said they always wore a mask or cloth face covering outside the home. Another one-third said they sometimes wore a mask in public, and one-third reported that they never did.
Here is what some of the research shows about who is covering up.
----- 2 -----
Neo-Confederate Group Moves Ahead with Conference Amid Covid-19 Outbreak
30 March 2020
[EDITOR: I realise this is old, but it's still relevant]
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2020/03/30/neo-confederate-group-moves-ahead-conference-amid-covid-19-outbreak
Michael Hill has no intention of letting a global pandemic cancel plans for the League of the South’s annual conference.
The 68-year-old Hill, president of the League, posted the following to the group’s website March 18.
“At present, we are doing more than simply ‘monitoring’ the situation. We are actively making plans and raising funds to help our members who are in financial straits, and we are moving ahead with our plans for upcoming events, including our 2020 national conference in late June.”
Hill’s decision goes against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recommendations against gatherings of more than 10 people. Older adults in particular are likely at higher risk for the disease, the CDC notes. The average age of the League’s state chairmen and national staff is roughly 57.
----- 3 -----
Hydroxychloroquine failed to prevent healthy people from getting COVID-19 in trial
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
and Laurie Mcginley
June 3, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/hydroxychloroquine-failed-to-prevent-healthy-people-from-getting-covid-19-in-trial/
Hydroxychloroquine did not prevent healthy people exposed to COVID-19 from getting the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to a study being published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study is the first randomized clinical trial that tested the antimalarial drug, touted by President Donald Trump, as a preventive measure. It showed that hydroxychloroquine was no more effective than a placebo — in this case, a vitamin — in protecting people exposed to COVID-19.
“As we say in Tennessee, ‘That dog won’t hunt’ — it didn’t work,” said William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Schaffner, who was not involved in the trial, praised it as “rigorously done.”
----- 4 -----
A mysterious company’s coronavirus papers in top medical journals may be unraveling
By Kelly Servick, Martin Enserink
Jun. 2, 2020
[EDITOR: SEE ALSO NEXT ARTICLE]
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/mysterious-company-s-coronavirus-papers-top-medical-journals-may-be-unraveling
On its face, it was a major finding: Antimalarial drugs touted by the White House as possible COVID-19 treatments looked to be not just ineffective, but downright deadly. A study published on 22 May in The Lancet used hospital records procured by a little-known data analytics company called Surgisphere to conclude that coronavirus patients taking chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine were more likely to show an irregular heart rhythm—a known side effect thought to be rare—and were more likely to die in the hospital.
Within days, some large randomized trials of the drugs—the type that might prove or disprove the retrospective study’s analysis—screeched to a halt. Solidarity, the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) megatrial of potential COVID-19 treatments, paused recruitment into its hydroxychloroquine arm, for example. (Update: At a briefing on 3 June WHO announced it would resume that arm of the study.)
But just as quickly, the Lancet results have begun to unravel—and Surgisphere, which provided patient data for two other high-profile COVID-19 papers, has come under withering online scrutiny from researchers and amateur sleuths. They have pointed out many red flags in the Lancet paper, including the astonishing number of patients involved and details about their demographics and prescribed dosing that seem implausible. “It began to stretch and stretch and stretch credulity,” says Nicholas White, a malaria researcher at Mahidol University in Bangkok.
Today, The Lancet issued an Expression of Concern (EOC) saying “important scientific questions have been raised about data” in the paper and noting that “an independent audit of the provenance and validity of the data has been commissioned by the authors not affiliated with Surgisphere and is ongoing, with results expected very shortly.”
Hours earlier, The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) issued its own EOC about a second study using Surgisphere data, published on 1 May. The paper reported that taking certain blood pressure drugs including angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors didn’t appear to increase the risk of death among COVID-19 patients, as some researchers had suggested. (Several studies analyzing other groups of COVID-19 patients support the NEJM results.) “Recently, substantive concerns have been raised about the quality of the information in that database,” an NEJM statement noted. “We have asked the authors to provide evidence that the data are reliable.”
----- 5 -----
Surgisphere, a tiny startup that claims to be providing large real world data for scientific health studies, is probably fabricating data at scale.
30 May 2020
http://freerangestats.info/blog/2020/05/30/implausible-health-data-firm
If you’re following at all the search for COVID-19 treatments, and possibly even if not, you will have seen the flurry of media coverage for the observational study in The Lancet ‘Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis. It made the news not least because hydroxychloroquine is the drug President Trump says he is taking in the belief that it will reduce his chance of catching COVID-19. This view is not backed up evidence until some randomised trials come in. Getting in before the trials, the Lancet study used propensity score matching to try to control for the non-random treatment. It found that taking hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine were associated with an increased risk of heart problems.
I am highly skeptical of the powers of hydroxychloroquine with relation to COVID-19 (‘skeptical’ in the sense that I have suspended judgement for now - there simply isn’t evidence either way). But I want the test of its properties to be done properly, with random controlled trials. And if we are to use observational studies (which I do not object to, they just aren’t as useful as an experiment where you can manipulate the treatment), they have to use real data.
The data in that study, and in at least one preprint on a second treatment, were provided by an Illinois firm called Surgisphere. Allegedly the data represents the treatment and health outcomes of 96,032 patients from 671 hospitals in six continents. However, there is simply no plausible way I can think of that the data are real.
I’ll say that again - I believe with very high probability the data behind that high profile, high consequence Lancet study are completely fabricated.
- Who’s wearing a mask? Women, Democrats and city dwellers
- Neo-Confederate Group Moves Ahead with Conference Amid Covid-19 Outbreak
- Hydroxychloroquine failed to prevent healthy people from getting COVID-19 in trial
- A mysterious company’s coronavirus papers in top medical journals may be unraveling
- Surgisphere, a tiny startup that claims to be providing large real world data for scientific health studies, is probably fabricating data at scale.
----- 1 -----
Who’s wearing a mask? Women, Democrats and city dwellers
June 2, 2020
By Mariel Padilla
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/whos-wearing-a-mask-women-democrats-and-city-dwellers/
As states continue to lift restrictions that were put in place to curb the coronavirus outbreak and as Americans start going out in public again, recent surveys suggest that gender, political affiliation and education level are factors that have a bearing on who is wearing a mask, and who isn’t.
Public health officials have recommended wearing masks in public when social distancing measures are difficult to maintain, such as in grocery stores and pharmacies, and at least a dozen states have required them in those circumstances. And most businesses that are reopening are doing so with restrictions: fewer customers, social distancing and face masks.
According to a Gallup poll that was conducted in mid-April, only one-third of Americans said they always wore a mask or cloth face covering outside the home. Another one-third said they sometimes wore a mask in public, and one-third reported that they never did.
Here is what some of the research shows about who is covering up.
----- 2 -----
Neo-Confederate Group Moves Ahead with Conference Amid Covid-19 Outbreak
30 March 2020
[EDITOR: I realise this is old, but it's still relevant]
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2020/03/30/neo-confederate-group-moves-ahead-conference-amid-covid-19-outbreak
Michael Hill has no intention of letting a global pandemic cancel plans for the League of the South’s annual conference.
The 68-year-old Hill, president of the League, posted the following to the group’s website March 18.
“At present, we are doing more than simply ‘monitoring’ the situation. We are actively making plans and raising funds to help our members who are in financial straits, and we are moving ahead with our plans for upcoming events, including our 2020 national conference in late June.”
Hill’s decision goes against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recommendations against gatherings of more than 10 people. Older adults in particular are likely at higher risk for the disease, the CDC notes. The average age of the League’s state chairmen and national staff is roughly 57.
----- 3 -----
Hydroxychloroquine failed to prevent healthy people from getting COVID-19 in trial
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
and Laurie Mcginley
June 3, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/hydroxychloroquine-failed-to-prevent-healthy-people-from-getting-covid-19-in-trial/
Hydroxychloroquine did not prevent healthy people exposed to COVID-19 from getting the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to a study being published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study is the first randomized clinical trial that tested the antimalarial drug, touted by President Donald Trump, as a preventive measure. It showed that hydroxychloroquine was no more effective than a placebo — in this case, a vitamin — in protecting people exposed to COVID-19.
“As we say in Tennessee, ‘That dog won’t hunt’ — it didn’t work,” said William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Schaffner, who was not involved in the trial, praised it as “rigorously done.”
----- 4 -----
A mysterious company’s coronavirus papers in top medical journals may be unraveling
By Kelly Servick, Martin Enserink
Jun. 2, 2020
[EDITOR: SEE ALSO NEXT ARTICLE]
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/mysterious-company-s-coronavirus-papers-top-medical-journals-may-be-unraveling
On its face, it was a major finding: Antimalarial drugs touted by the White House as possible COVID-19 treatments looked to be not just ineffective, but downright deadly. A study published on 22 May in The Lancet used hospital records procured by a little-known data analytics company called Surgisphere to conclude that coronavirus patients taking chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine were more likely to show an irregular heart rhythm—a known side effect thought to be rare—and were more likely to die in the hospital.
Within days, some large randomized trials of the drugs—the type that might prove or disprove the retrospective study’s analysis—screeched to a halt. Solidarity, the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) megatrial of potential COVID-19 treatments, paused recruitment into its hydroxychloroquine arm, for example. (Update: At a briefing on 3 June WHO announced it would resume that arm of the study.)
But just as quickly, the Lancet results have begun to unravel—and Surgisphere, which provided patient data for two other high-profile COVID-19 papers, has come under withering online scrutiny from researchers and amateur sleuths. They have pointed out many red flags in the Lancet paper, including the astonishing number of patients involved and details about their demographics and prescribed dosing that seem implausible. “It began to stretch and stretch and stretch credulity,” says Nicholas White, a malaria researcher at Mahidol University in Bangkok.
Today, The Lancet issued an Expression of Concern (EOC) saying “important scientific questions have been raised about data” in the paper and noting that “an independent audit of the provenance and validity of the data has been commissioned by the authors not affiliated with Surgisphere and is ongoing, with results expected very shortly.”
Hours earlier, The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) issued its own EOC about a second study using Surgisphere data, published on 1 May. The paper reported that taking certain blood pressure drugs including angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors didn’t appear to increase the risk of death among COVID-19 patients, as some researchers had suggested. (Several studies analyzing other groups of COVID-19 patients support the NEJM results.) “Recently, substantive concerns have been raised about the quality of the information in that database,” an NEJM statement noted. “We have asked the authors to provide evidence that the data are reliable.”
----- 5 -----
Surgisphere, a tiny startup that claims to be providing large real world data for scientific health studies, is probably fabricating data at scale.
30 May 2020
http://freerangestats.info/blog/2020/05/30/implausible-health-data-firm
If you’re following at all the search for COVID-19 treatments, and possibly even if not, you will have seen the flurry of media coverage for the observational study in The Lancet ‘Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis. It made the news not least because hydroxychloroquine is the drug President Trump says he is taking in the belief that it will reduce his chance of catching COVID-19. This view is not backed up evidence until some randomised trials come in. Getting in before the trials, the Lancet study used propensity score matching to try to control for the non-random treatment. It found that taking hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine were associated with an increased risk of heart problems.
I am highly skeptical of the powers of hydroxychloroquine with relation to COVID-19 (‘skeptical’ in the sense that I have suspended judgement for now - there simply isn’t evidence either way). But I want the test of its properties to be done properly, with random controlled trials. And if we are to use observational studies (which I do not object to, they just aren’t as useful as an experiment where you can manipulate the treatment), they have to use real data.
The data in that study, and in at least one preprint on a second treatment, were provided by an Illinois firm called Surgisphere. Allegedly the data represents the treatment and health outcomes of 96,032 patients from 671 hospitals in six continents. However, there is simply no plausible way I can think of that the data are real.
I’ll say that again - I believe with very high probability the data behind that high profile, high consequence Lancet study are completely fabricated.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-03 11:36 pm (UTC)Am I terrible for wishing that they all catch COVID at the conference?
If only we could be certain that only they catch it and don't spread it to innocent people when they come home.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-04 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-04 01:22 am (UTC)