5 ms·

FYI: the lancet has unfortunately become a rather alarmist journal of late. There are several articles citing "bbc.co.uk" as fact which is similar to a Russian

by rob_c 5y ago

FYI: the lancet has unfortunately become a rather alarmist journal of late. There are several articles citing "bbc.co.uk" as fact which is similar to a Russian source citing "rt.com". Those articles in turn getting cited by the beeb in the uk to publish daily mail style FUD headlines which are quickly buried on the site. Ignoring this, I think most other comments cover the fact that this study has the normal problem with this type of study. Poor stats which aren't statistically corrected for the subset the population who end up in hospital due to covid. (or again the subset with symptoms strong enough to be tested and diagnosed) The "its just a flu" crowd have unfortunate points that many conditions sound like immunological effects brought on by a severe reaction to a virus in some way. Yes this is a different flu, but again we know this is not smallpocks or ebola and we should be taking advantage of this to determine the poorly understood impacts of covid virii on long term health of those who end up sick.

viraptor 5y ago
> which aren't statistically corrected for the subset the population who end up in hospital due to covid What subset do you mean?
- rob_c 5y ago
  Not everyone in the pre-vaccine world would have ended up on a ventilator due to covid. If the was a subset of the population who are at risk due to covid. (other than the over 80s the sake of argument). Its difficult to know how much an impact on this subset the virus will be having. Its easiest to assess this by looking at those of the population on who did end up in hospital and trying to determine common effects by looking at those who contacted them and comparing the probabilities. Ultimately the end goal is to infer how much of a risk impact this would/could have on the total population. Failing to correct for the statistical population differences before making an inference is akin to saying A&E centers in the US or the EU are great for preventing tiger attacks. They don't treat it due to there not being so many tigers. Again reporting on the worst case scenario for the virus impact on over 80s as being something that would/could impact 8yo people is obviously incorrect and potentially dishonest.
  - viraptor 5y ago
    I think you expect more from the study than it explicitly says. From the abstract: "Interpretation. These results accord with reports of ‘Long Covid’ cognitive symptoms that persist into the early-chronic phase. They should act as a clarion call for further research with longitudinal and neuroimaging cohorts..." Yes, the impact and recovery will be different between those people. They didn't intend the paper to be a complete answer and with the method they used, it would be impossible to achieve. What you ask for is interesting and I hope other papers will be published digging deeper, but why not accept this result for what it is?
    - rob_c 5y ago
      Again, hence my warning about the quality of the lancet and how the published result will be interpreted. It's no different from a theorist publishing on arxiv "an analysis on the chances of the lhc destorying the solar system" vs "micro singularity formation cross sectional calculations for 7TeV". The ultimate "further study needed" has become a comical tag line for poor stats and might as well be "chances of covid leading to me winning the lottery". Both are valid questions, but they have clear implications beyond enhancing scientific rigour.
      - viraptor 5y ago
        > and how the published result will be interpreted. I think we lost that long time ago when news started hyping up any study containing "cancer" and reporting their ideas as "researchers say". The best we can do is discuss details as we do here, but without the hyperbole. There are claims made by the study and there are things not done in it. (whether missed or not possible to do from the data) Let's acknowledge them. But I think the "winning the lottery" is just going ad absurdum. If you'd like to see the split of impact for smaller groups, it will have to come from another paper. But it doesn't make this paper wrong or show "poor stats".
        rob_c 5y ago
        I'm sorry, but I strongly, firmly, believe with evidence based research to back my concerns that this is a large amount of alarmist research which at best is to cash in on readily available covid money. I unfortunately believe this to be shortsighted and ultimately unethical. This is a virus from the covid family. What reasonable assumption should lead us to suspect it behaves so strongly asymptomatically as to cause severe hitherto unheard of side effects compared to say "bird-flu"? I am very much up for caution and as I say I very much welcome a renewed effort to say compare long term flu effects and things like cronif fatigue. But I think writing about evidence being inconclusive vs "there is no evidence to suggest" are strongly different lines for a journal which knows has the attention of a major global news source. This is the difference between publishing this in nature and saying "more research needed" rather than "cautiously there is no strong evidence for". In not invoking ad-abusurdism I'm highlighting mixing 2 statistically unlikely events can reveal unfortunate data points which incorrectly leads to the wrong result. If I caught the lottery after being diagnosed I could say I've strong evidence for when I don't. This is no different to getting cancer after being diagnosed and blaming cancer on covid from 1 case. We are in vaccine autism territory again with long term covid studies and I just hope that the research community (not an individual researcher) and the media tred carefully. So far they have both been rather like a bull in a china shop with their subtleties.
mellosouls 5y ago
There are several articles citing "bbc.co.uk" as fact which is similar to a Russian source citing "rt.com". Not remotely similar; whatever their flaws, the BBC is still internationally respected for impartiality and professionalism, and the UK is still a country that values the freedom of ideas and expression of them.
- rob_c 5y ago
  I'm sorry but frankly no. You are so demonstrably incorrect on this assertion. There are many areas where RT report really well and have been rewarded. I however wouldn't ever trust them as a reputable source of the status of the Russian vaccination program or Russian voting. Frankly this is common sense, read the foreign reporting on any issue in a country to balance what is correct and what is being magnipulated regardless of who is reporting on it. This is how grown ups are supposed to use the Internet rather than falling into a bubble of trusting 3or4 sites as gospel. The same way I would be weary of the BBC reporting on any topic remotely close to the political arena in the uk at the time. The beeb are getting demonstrably concerningly biased their manipulation or changes to page ranking within their site. They regularly do publish quoting lancet pages without directly linking to them, the story then falls out of the ranking within 24hr and the external index engines struggle to find the static published content they still have. It's they're it's "just gone". This is not a result of reasonable reporting or sensible journalism. When the article is mistitled for clicks this is even worse. I'm being nice to aunty beeb here. I want it to exist. But pretending it's currently an infallable entity and is unbiased is an insult to its heritage.
  - mellosouls 5y ago
    Me: whatever their flaws... You: But pretending it's currently an infallable entity... Completely not what I said. Seriously, you should be more careful with your words: twice wide of the mark now - in just two comments.
    - rob_c 5y ago
      Impartiality and professionalism with a global context is a bit of an absolutist statement. They're an award winning news organisation with international respect and something worth being proud of certainly, but they're far from globally impartial or completely professional.

by rob_c 5y ago

viraptor 5y ago

> which aren't statistically corrected for the subset the population who end up in hospital due to covid What subset do you mean?

rob_c 5y ago
Not everyone in the pre-vaccine world would have ended up on a ventilator due to covid. If the was a subset of the population who are at risk due to covid. (other than the over 80s the sake of argument). Its difficult to know how much an impact on this subset the virus will be having. Its easiest to assess this by looking at those of the population on who did end up in hospital and trying to determine common effects by looking at those who contacted them and comparing the probabilities. Ultimately the end goal is to infer how much of a risk impact this would/could have on the total population. Failing to correct for the statistical population differences before making an inference is akin to saying A&E centers in the US or the EU are great for preventing tiger attacks. They don't treat it due to there not being so many tigers. Again reporting on the worst case scenario for the virus impact on over 80s as being something that would/could impact 8yo people is obviously incorrect and potentially dishonest.
- viraptor 5y ago
  I think you expect more from the study than it explicitly says. From the abstract: "Interpretation. These results accord with reports of ‘Long Covid’ cognitive symptoms that persist into the early-chronic phase. They should act as a clarion call for further research with longitudinal and neuroimaging cohorts..." Yes, the impact and recovery will be different between those people. They didn't intend the paper to be a complete answer and with the method they used, it would be impossible to achieve. What you ask for is interesting and I hope other papers will be published digging deeper, but why not accept this result for what it is?
  - rob_c 5y ago
    Again, hence my warning about the quality of the lancet and how the published result will be interpreted. It's no different from a theorist publishing on arxiv "an analysis on the chances of the lhc destorying the solar system" vs "micro singularity formation cross sectional calculations for 7TeV". The ultimate "further study needed" has become a comical tag line for poor stats and might as well be "chances of covid leading to me winning the lottery". Both are valid questions, but they have clear implications beyond enhancing scientific rigour.
    - viraptor 5y ago
      > and how the published result will be interpreted. I think we lost that long time ago when news started hyping up any study containing "cancer" and reporting their ideas as "researchers say". The best we can do is discuss details as we do here, but without the hyperbole. There are claims made by the study and there are things not done in it. (whether missed or not possible to do from the data) Let's acknowledge them. But I think the "winning the lottery" is just going ad absurdum. If you'd like to see the split of impact for smaller groups, it will have to come from another paper. But it doesn't make this paper wrong or show "poor stats".
      - rob_c 5y ago
        I'm sorry, but I strongly, firmly, believe with evidence based research to back my concerns that this is a large amount of alarmist research which at best is to cash in on readily available covid money. I unfortunately believe this to be shortsighted and ultimately unethical. This is a virus from the covid family. What reasonable assumption should lead us to suspect it behaves so strongly asymptomatically as to cause severe hitherto unheard of side effects compared to say "bird-flu"? I am very much up for caution and as I say I very much welcome a renewed effort to say compare long term flu effects and things like cronif fatigue. But I think writing about evidence being inconclusive vs "there is no evidence to suggest" are strongly different lines for a journal which knows has the attention of a major global news source. This is the difference between publishing this in nature and saying "more research needed" rather than "cautiously there is no strong evidence for". In not invoking ad-abusurdism I'm highlighting mixing 2 statistically unlikely events can reveal unfortunate data points which incorrectly leads to the wrong result. If I caught the lottery after being diagnosed I could say I've strong evidence for when I don't. This is no different to getting cancer after being diagnosed and blaming cancer on covid from 1 case. We are in vaccine autism territory again with long term covid studies and I just hope that the research community (not an individual researcher) and the media tred carefully. So far they have both been rather like a bull in a china shop with their subtleties.

mellosouls 5y ago

There are several articles citing "bbc.co.uk" as fact which is similar to a Russian source citing "rt.com". Not remotely similar; whatever their flaws, the BBC is still internationally respected for impartiality and professionalism, and the UK is still a country that values the freedom of ideas and expression of them.

rob_c 5y ago
I'm sorry but frankly no. You are so demonstrably incorrect on this assertion. There are many areas where RT report really well and have been rewarded. I however wouldn't ever trust them as a reputable source of the status of the Russian vaccination program or Russian voting. Frankly this is common sense, read the foreign reporting on any issue in a country to balance what is correct and what is being magnipulated regardless of who is reporting on it. This is how grown ups are supposed to use the Internet rather than falling into a bubble of trusting 3or4 sites as gospel. The same way I would be weary of the BBC reporting on any topic remotely close to the political arena in the uk at the time. The beeb are getting demonstrably concerningly biased their manipulation or changes to page ranking within their site. They regularly do publish quoting lancet pages without directly linking to them, the story then falls out of the ranking within 24hr and the external index engines struggle to find the static published content they still have. It's they're it's "just gone". This is not a result of reasonable reporting or sensible journalism. When the article is mistitled for clicks this is even worse. I'm being nice to aunty beeb here. I want it to exist. But pretending it's currently an infallable entity and is unbiased is an insult to its heritage.
- mellosouls 5y ago
  Me: whatever their flaws... You: But pretending it's currently an infallable entity... Completely not what I said. Seriously, you should be more careful with your words: twice wide of the mark now - in just two comments.
  - rob_c 5y ago
    Impartiality and professionalism with a global context is a bit of an absolutist statement. They're an award winning news organisation with international respect and something worth being proud of certainly, but they're far from globally impartial or completely professional.