I haven’t read the study other than in the popular press. Non peer-reviewed scholarship can be fraught with bias as you clearly point out. Unless the R and D cohorts are matched for multiple comorbidities as well as age, statistical validity is questionable. Has this since been peer reviewed and published?
The study is still in pre-print, so it hasn’t been officially peer-reviewed yet. From what I know, that will probably take several more months.
One thing the study does right is that its method of analysis DOES fairly well control for a lot of background factors, because it compares against pre-covid mortality for the respective parties. Therefore, any disequilibrium in comorbidities should be irrelevant. As I briefly mentioned, one of the critiques I linked to does disapprove of the “binning” the study uses for age, and I agree that it could be done more precisely. It only uses four “bins” to control for age, one of which is 25-64, I believe. While I don’t think it would change much, I hope that the authors consider using other control approaches in a supplementary appendix as a way of testing the rigor of their conclusions.
The similar death rates prior to COVID do not necessarily mean much as COVID selects particular comorbidities for severe illness, age, diabetes, obesity etc. Mortality prior to COVID would involve many other predisposing factors, including genetics and environment Inter alia and so, although I think intuitively the conclusion is correct ( and frankly WANT to think that), this type of retrospective analysis is not totally convincing.
Interesting topic. Well-written and concise. You have a knack at this. Will be interested to see if there are any updates
@dudeasincool on Twitter
I haven’t read the study other than in the popular press. Non peer-reviewed scholarship can be fraught with bias as you clearly point out. Unless the R and D cohorts are matched for multiple comorbidities as well as age, statistical validity is questionable. Has this since been peer reviewed and published?
The study is still in pre-print, so it hasn’t been officially peer-reviewed yet. From what I know, that will probably take several more months.
One thing the study does right is that its method of analysis DOES fairly well control for a lot of background factors, because it compares against pre-covid mortality for the respective parties. Therefore, any disequilibrium in comorbidities should be irrelevant. As I briefly mentioned, one of the critiques I linked to does disapprove of the “binning” the study uses for age, and I agree that it could be done more precisely. It only uses four “bins” to control for age, one of which is 25-64, I believe. While I don’t think it would change much, I hope that the authors consider using other control approaches in a supplementary appendix as a way of testing the rigor of their conclusions.
Here is a relevant peer-reviewed article you might find of interest. (And, as an aside, how is life on Twitter these days?)
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2798990?guestAccessKey=39c0c9c9-bdc8-4525-bfa5-3527149ff205&utm_source=silverchair&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=article_alert-jama&utm_content=olf&utm_term=111822
The similar death rates prior to COVID do not necessarily mean much as COVID selects particular comorbidities for severe illness, age, diabetes, obesity etc. Mortality prior to COVID would involve many other predisposing factors, including genetics and environment Inter alia and so, although I think intuitively the conclusion is correct ( and frankly WANT to think that), this type of retrospective analysis is not totally convincing.