Cincinnati Coronas Hockey

[Comeds]

I couldn’t find the science thread but I hear there are no confirmed cases on Uranus either.

Could the germ/virus/whatever it is (no one really knows) survive on Uranus? Would wearing a mask on Uranus help?

 

[dash]

 

[dash]

 

[jstewismybastardson]

 

[Darkstone42]

God I hate that guy, and that he's the sort my state elects. Just a Biggs idiot. The Biggs moron.

 

[puckhead]

57,000 new cases in the USA alone yesterday, and Cheeto von Fuckface tweets out that it's great news.
Coronavirus updates: Trump says increase of cases is 'great news'

won't someone please cough on his Big Mac.
actually, no - keep him going until November so there is no excuses

 

[Darkstone42]

Okay, I get a chance to complain about a bad science headline which is actually significant now.


This Tapper tweet suggests HCQ has been deemed an effective treatment in a recent study, on its surface. The article, meanwhile, points out the flaw in drawing that conclusion from the study. First, the conclusion.

"Overall crude mortality rates were 18.1% in the entire cohort, 13.5% in the hydroxychloroquine alone group, 20.1% among those receiving hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin, 22.4% among the azithromycin alone group, and 26.4% for neither drug," the team wrote in a report published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.

However, two things in particular jump out.

"The combination of hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin was reserved for selected patients with severe COVID-19 and with minimal cardiac risk factors," the team wrote.

I'm not an expert on this stuff, but this might be a pretty significant element of selection bias. It appears the study evaluated all patients who were hospitalized in the Henry Ford Healthy System on first admission with the virus, and did not isolate to the type of patients--those with minimal cardiac risk factors--who were treated with the drug. Since those same health factors likely lead to higher COVID mortality rates, failing to account for this selection likely invalidates the findings on their surface.

But there's more.

"Finally, concomitant steroid use in patients receiving hydroxychloroquine was more than double the non-treated group. This is relevant considering the recent RECOVERY trial that showed a mortality benefit with dexamethasone." The steroid dexamethasone can reduce inflammation in seriously ill patients.

So the mortality of HCQ-receiving patients was half that of those who didn't, but those patients were also twice as likely to receive concurrent treatment with a drug which has shown a benefit in reducing mortality in an actual clinical trial. That's now two elements of selection bias which paints HCQ treatment favorably.

Finally, this was an observational study, not a rigorous clinical study. It carries far less weight an merit in evaluating the effectiveness of treatment, since an observational study is not carefully designed to isolate the treatment being studied.

Some of these limitations are touched on in the article, and yet the article overall--and the headline in particular, especially Tapper's tweet--give this study apparent equal weight and credibility to the clinical trials it apparently contradicts. That's irresponsible journalism, and a substantial failing of public science communication which can actually hurt people. Most of the replies to Jake's tweet are taking it as vindication of Trump and his followers, and evidence of intentional, malicious journalistic malpractice to make Trump look bad at the expense of people's lives. But it's this article which fails, not the reports on clinical trials highlighting the inefficacy and unsafety of HCQ as a COVID-19 treatment.

 

[Darkstone42]

Jake Tapper is one of the reasons I'm angry all the time. Any apparently-serious media person who is more concerned with telling "both sides" of stories than being genuinely accurate is at least as harmful to society as the literal Nazis. Most people know the Nazis are wrong and bad. People like Tapper have broad public trust. Failure of scrutiny by someone like that hurts a lot of well-meaning people, and leads them to hurt others in turn.

 

[jstewismybastardson]

Idiots certainly thought this

 

[dash]

I'd rather hear from Dr. Recchi than Dr. Navarro.

 

[KennyBanyeah]

 

[jstewismybastardson]

but i thought they stopped flights from ‘GINA with great success ???

the Trump flu needs to be blamed on someone i guess

 

[dash]

19 MLB teams have at least one positive COVID-19 test result...

31 MLB players positive for virus after initial tests

 

[puckhead]

19 MLB teams have at least one positive COVID-19 test result...

31 MLB players positive for virus after initial tests

not the Tigers though, they can't catch anything.




(I had to look up which team was shitty last year)

 

[forty_three]

not the Tigers though, they can't catch anything.




(I had to look up which team was shitty last year)

 

[Comeds]

It's July and they are tied for first.....who's laughing now?

 

[jstewismybastardson]

 

[dash]

When he heard that 2.2 million Americans would die if he did nothing, he decided to try to see if that number was attainable.

 

[dash]

B.C. reports 13 new COVID-19 cases, deadly outbreak at Langely Lodge declared over

 

[Darkstone42]

When he heard that 2.2 million Americans would die if he did nothing, he decided to try to see if that number was attainable.

If he did "nothing," we'd likely be better off than we are. But instead he muddied the waters and created a culture war around people doing the basic things for each other to keep each other safe. So yeah, maybe he is actively trying to get a maximum kill count.