4 ms·
>and they - as far as I can tell - do not explain why these people did not receive their normal Vitamin D supplementation Under subheading 2.2: "All residents
by scythe 6y ago
>and they - as far as I can tell - do not explain why these people did not receive their normal Vitamin D supplementation
Under subheading 2.2: "All residents in the nursing-home receive chronic vitamin D supplementation with regular maintenance boluses (single oral dose of 80,000 IU vitamin D3 every 2–3 months),"
The comparator (not recent supplement) group was on a different schedule, and had received a supplement probably two months ago.
>Finally, there were four total interventions: corticosteroids, hydroxychloroquine, "dedicated antibiotics" and the observation about Vitamin D. The more things you try, the less surprising it should be that there is a correlation along one of them.
Are you referring to these lines: "use of corticosteroids and/or hydroxychloroquine and/or antibiotics (i.e., azithromycin or rovamycin), and hospitalization for COVID-19 were used as potential confounders."
You only run up against ( https://xkcd.com/882/ https://xkcd.com/882/ ) when you perform multiple statistical tests, not when you merely have a heterogeneous study population. Unless they were also testing these other interventions, that critique does not apply.
- scott_s 6y ago> Unless they were also testing these other interventions, that critique does not apply. How do we know they weren't? Since this is not a RTC, but rather an analysis of historical data, we don't know how much they divided up this historical data looking for correlations.
- scythe 6y agoThe general problem with this line of argument is that it's meant to be a critique of a statistical fishing expedition (sharpshooter fallacy). This study is clearly not a fishing expedition because vitamin D has been a topic of interest in coronavirus disease for months now with multiple studies conducted.
- scott_s 6y ago> This study is clearly not a fishing expedition because vitamin D has been a topic of interest in coronavirus disease for months now with multiple studies conducted. That others have studied something does not preclude these researchers from "fishing" their data looking for a correlation. Since we don't know what process they used, we can't say. When considering the other weaknesses (such as the small number of "comparators"), it furthers my consideration of this study being weak evidence.