On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 4:20 PM Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote:
*> So infection rates in the control group were 14.3% and in the group > receiving HCQ were 11.8%. That's an absolute risk reduction of > (14.3-11.8)/14.3 = 17.5%.* And that is a rate that is not statistically significant, that is to say it was most likely a random artifact produced by the small sample size. And that is why every scientist who knows something about statistics was not hailing this is a major milestone in the fight against COVID-19 but instead was telling people to stop wasting their time talking about hydroxychloroquine and use that time to look for something that might actually work. Of course there are still plenty of people screaming about the wonders of hydroxychloroquine, but none of them are scientists who know something about the subtleties of statistics; they are instead Internet pundits with 20 minutes of study of the science of epidemiology under their belt, fascist politicians desperate to win reelection, and quack doctors who babble about demon sperm and vaccines made from space alien DNA. Yes some early small scale tests hinted that hydroxychloroquine might be useful but the most important of them was retracted, to the great embarrassment of the journal involved, because the data used in it was suspect: Retraction—Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: <https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31324-6/fulltext> And later much larger and much better conducted trials indicated hydroxychloroquine conferred no benefit in the treatment of COVID-19 and if anything was harmful: Three big studies dim hopes that hydroxychloroquine can treat or prevent COVID-19 <https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/three-big-studies-dim-hopes-hydroxychloroquine-can-treat-or-prevent-covid-19> John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv23Q4U0VJjWKVaxV7aQVQgGAs954nUmb2g-JJXHJcdXuQ%40mail.gmail.com.
