California no longer under lockdown - people freak out

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
You didn't even count the data points correctly. All you gotta do is copy/paste to spreadsheet, sort them in order and highlight all in said range to get an accurate count.
That's exactly what I did, and if you do so using the number ranges shown in my post, you get what I showed in my post: a bell curve.

You do not create a histogram with different sized bins, nor by further biasing your histogram by selecting the bin values on the basis of something you think you've seen and want to make a point of. The fact you are trying to make this argument demonstrates nothing other than that you do not understand histograms and that you do not treat the data neutrally.

This is without considering that you don't necessarily expect a "perfect" bell curve anyway, especially with limited data points, because of random fluctuation. (In much the same way if you roll a conventional die 42 times, you are deeply unlikely to end up with exactly 7 instances of each number 1-6)

I wonder why a quarter of the studies are right on the 2.5 line that CPG stated as their average...
They aren't "right on the 2.5 line". They are spread across a region of ~2-3. They appear "on the 2.5 line" because of the wider scale. This, again, is why we subject things to analysis rather than rely on someone's visual approximation.

And outside of young kids, about a quarter have levels 25 nmol or below. Just saying.
Yes, but why are you pointing this out? I have repeatedly said many times that government guidance states that there are "at-risk" groups and advises them to take more or to follow specific medical guidance. This has been answered so often it is akin to banging one's head against a wall.

Kory resigned and went to another place. Maybe he got in trouble vs his choice. I'd hardly call him most likely still making a great salary somewhere else "getting in trouble". This isn't the 1st I've heard of institutions being an issue with treatment. One private practice doctor said he was very fortunate to have a private practice so he could treat how he saw fit. Yes, technically doctors can prescribe whatever they want, but that's not how it always goes down either.
Yes, doctors do not exist in their own bubbles. Guidelines exist at all levels and individual institutions may well decide treatments in line with or different from government guidelines according to their own systems: often likely to be consensus of their senior staff. The reason they do so is not so much government guidelines, but the threat of being sued for malpractice, and that doctors should work in teams and have oversight rather than let loose cannons be dictators of their own little empire. If a doctor wishes to protest his institution's treatment plan, he should take it up with the institution through their normal processes, rather than embarrass them by going to a political debate and saying they won't let him save people's lives.

The concept of the "maverick surgeon" who flouts the system to save his patients is a well-worn trope, and so frequently used because it's attractive, an underdog story of the little guy overcoming the senseless, faceless, stupid, sclerotic authority. The unfortunate reality is nine times out of ten the "maverick surgeon" is actually a danger to his patients. The same people lionising the maverick hero surgeon rage at why the system wasn't more restrictive to the maverick villain surgeons, seemingly not realising the two are mutually contradictory visions of how the system should work.
 

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
The technicalities of what is airborne and what is not airborne isn't important.
Sure. Tell that to all the scientists out there: "Hey dude, your technicality isn't important", I reckon it's this with my estimate, and that's all that matters!

I just don't think you understand what the CDC does. It's there to provide specialist advice, chiefly to the government. The simple and straight message to the public is supposed to come from the government, who have turned the advice from organisations like the CDC into policy, bearing in mind other concerns that are outside the CDC's remit. The CDC does also communicate with the public, but fundamentally represents a form of technical expertise and explaining complex stuff to a lay audience who want to know more. It's not the primary guidance to people who don't know their arse from their elbow.

I read it way back; I got a sent text message (from June) of a screenshot of the article I sent to a friend that cited a study that found 1 transmission traced to outdoors out of over 7,000 infections. The UK's "Rule of 6" started in September. Covid is a respiratory virus, why would outdoors be even speculated to be as dangerous as indoors?
Firstly, you got sent a text about one study. Again, mentioned a thousand fucking times, is how risky it is to trust your knowledge on a complex matter to one study. You are basically guessing. Congratulations, you may have guessed right on this occasion. Don't pretend it's insight.

Do you reckon there's minimal chance of spread of a respiratory disease for a crowd outdoors such as in the photo here?
1616067933076.png

Take a look at your computer screen, assume it's about two feet away from your face. It's probably covered in little spots unless you cleaned it recently. That's the spittle from your mouth, when you speak, smack your lips, cough, etc. If you're outside and standing close enough to someone, you're speaking to their face, coughing occasionally, you totally are spattering around droplets which will hit other people and enter their mouth or nose to access their respiratory tract. Yes, there's more chance that the air will blow the droplets and aerosols away, etc., and there is greater likelihood that with additional space outside, you will retain a larger personal distance. So transmission should be lower in the outside, but this reflects in part the manner in which people do stuff outside. Stand or walk past at a respectable difference, mostly fine. Lean into someone's face to speak, start snogging, all bets are off.

Thus infections from outside will be relatively low, because most outside interactions don't involve close contact. But when a government provides guidance to its citizens, it needs to keep them aware that disease spread is still a thing. A group of people who know each other well may hug, talk close to each other, and risk of them spreading virus turns from low to very high, even outside. The more of them interacting, including with potential close contact, the greater the risk. And of course the government also has to factor in that people can be stupid and/or disobedient.

That sort of thinking the practicalities through is very important. It is the sort of thing that many of the studies you think are telling you what the answer is actually do not address at all, and so can lead you into a completely false sense of assurance. It's the reason that the claims of certain policies not being "scientific" aren't really true: they are not directly supported by scientific study, which is actually a different matter. They are however appropriate or consistent with current scientific understanding.

I don't look at the site's analysis, I don't care about their analysis. Does that site not have all the studies?

Also, you've let to link to a single early treatment study that say HCQ does nothing or is harmful.
I've cited or referred to plenty in past threads. It's not my problem that you don't remember.

And you are not answering my question. If you did not get this idea from that website, where did you get it from? I am going to keep asking until you answer.

That's not a vitamin study...
Sure. It's not a true Scotsman, either.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
8,918
783
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
That's exactly what I did, and if you do so using the number ranges shown in my post, you get what I showed in my post: a bell curve.

You do not create a histogram with different sized bins, nor by further biasing your histogram by selecting the bin values on the basis of something you think you've seen and want to make a point of. The fact you are trying to make this argument demonstrates nothing other than that you do not understand histograms and that you do not treat the data neutrally.

This is without considering that you don't necessarily expect a "perfect" bell curve anyway, especially with limited data points, because of random fluctuation. (In much the same way if you roll a conventional die 42 times, you are deeply unlikely to end up with exactly 7 instances of each number 1-6)
Why'd you pick those ranges when the study itself said the mean range is 4.4 - 6.2?

They aren't "right on the 2.5 line". They are spread across a region of ~2-3. They appear "on the 2.5 line" because of the wider scale. This, again, is why we subject things to analysis rather than rely on someone's visual approximation.
I realize they aren't "right on" the line. However, there's a reason why you have 10 studies that all gave very similar values because they used the same methodology. The vitamin d serum levels are logarithmic so finding an average is kinda pointless. You wanna know stuff like how much vitamin d you need to go from say 10 nmol to 50 nmol, 30 nmol to 50 nmol, and so on. Finding some average isn't really useful because what to supplement with needs to be based on someone's baseline levels. Someone that needs to go up 10 nmols vs someone that needs to go up 25 nmols, you just can't use some average as it might not even work for either.

Yes, but why are you pointing this out? I have repeatedly said many times that government guidance states that there are "at-risk" groups and advises them to take more or to follow specific medical guidance. This has been answered so often it is akin to banging one's head against a wall.
Like I just said above, there's no "right" amount of vitamin d needed that will work for everyone.

Yes, doctors do not exist in their own bubbles. Guidelines exist at all levels and individual institutions may well decide treatments in line with or different from government guidelines according to their own systems: often likely to be consensus of their senior staff. The reason they do so is not so much government guidelines, but the threat of being sued for malpractice, and that doctors should work in teams and have oversight rather than let loose cannons be dictators of their own little empire. If a doctor wishes to protest his institution's treatment plan, he should take it up with the institution through their normal processes, rather than embarrass them by going to a political debate and saying they won't let him save people's lives.

The concept of the "maverick surgeon" who flouts the system to save his patients is a well-worn trope, and so frequently used because it's attractive, an underdog story of the little guy overcoming the senseless, faceless, stupid, sclerotic authority. The unfortunate reality is nine times out of ten the "maverick surgeon" is actually a danger to his patients. The same people lionising the maverick hero surgeon rage at why the system wasn't more restrictive to the maverick villain surgeons, seemingly not realising the two are mutually contradictory visions of how the system should work.
Oh, come on, we all know getting stuff done at any job happens at a snail's pace going through the normal processes. There aren't many "maverick surgeons" because the vast majority of things have well-known treatments. Doctors are mainly "diagnosers" nowadays and apply known treatments. Kory and others that were for steroids were for steroids because they followed the science. You actually got to go to a website to find the 2 or 3 doctors in your state (in the US) that will actually treat early covid.


Sure. Tell that to all the scientists out there: "Hey dude, your technicality isn't important", I reckon it's this with my estimate, and that's all that matters!

I just don't think you understand what the CDC does. It's there to provide specialist advice, chiefly to the government. The simple and straight message to the public is supposed to come from the government, who have turned the advice from organisations like the CDC into policy, bearing in mind other concerns that are outside the CDC's remit. The CDC does also communicate with the public, but fundamentally represents a form of technical expertise and explaining complex stuff to a lay audience who want to know more. It's not the primary guidance to people who don't know their arse from their elbow.
There is no agreed upon delineation between droplet and airborne transmission. Just tell people if they can get it from the air basically, that's all you gotta do.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
8,918
783
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
Firstly, you got sent a text about one study. Again, mentioned a thousand fucking times, is how risky it is to trust your knowledge on a complex matter to one study. You are basically guessing. Congratulations, you may have guessed right on this occasion. Don't pretend it's insight.

Do you reckon there's minimal chance of spread of a respiratory disease for a crowd outdoors such as in the photo here?


Take a look at your computer screen, assume it's about two feet away from your face. It's probably covered in little spots unless you cleaned it recently. That's the spittle from your mouth, when you speak, smack your lips, cough, etc. If you're outside and standing close enough to someone, you're speaking to their face, coughing occasionally, you totally are spattering around droplets which will hit other people and enter their mouth or nose to access their respiratory tract. Yes, there's more chance that the air will blow the droplets and aerosols away, etc., and there is greater likelihood that with additional space outside, you will retain a larger personal distance. So transmission should be lower in the outside, but this reflects in part the manner in which people do stuff outside. Stand or walk past at a respectable difference, mostly fine. Lean into someone's face to speak, start snogging, all bets are off.

Thus infections from outside will be relatively low, because most outside interactions don't involve close contact. But when a government provides guidance to its citizens, it needs to keep them aware that disease spread is still a thing. A group of people who know each other well may hug, talk close to each other, and risk of them spreading virus turns from low to very high, even outside. The more of them interacting, including with potential close contact, the greater the risk. And of course the government also has to factor in that people can be stupid and/or disobedient.

That sort of thinking the practicalities through is very important. It is the sort of thing that many of the studies you think are telling you what the answer is actually do not address at all, and so can lead you into a completely false sense of assurance. It's the reason that the claims of certain policies not being "scientific" aren't really true: they are not directly supported by scientific study, which is actually a different matter. They are however appropriate or consistent with current scientific understanding.
It's goddamn common sense that the air flow is gonna disperse the droplets. You really have to be in someone's face to spread it outside or just really bad luck of the air flowing right to someone's face. If you're sitting standard table length apart (a standard square, 4-person table) eating outside vs eating inside, a party of 4 (assuming 1 infectious person) indoors is far far far far more likely to spread covid than the outside table (with the same party). Indoors, you can catch covid from someone tables away from you, you can't catch it outside in that circumstance. Do you need an RCT to tell your kid that running with scissors is a bad idea? Some things are pretty common sense. Outdoors is safe is common sense.

Much like people having 10,000 times the amount of virus than SARS at the very onset of symptoms means people have plenty of virus before symptoms to spread it. It's basic logic. We knew of asymptomatic spread long before the CDC said anything about that.

I've cited or referred to plenty in past threads. It's not my problem that you don't remember.

And you are not answering my question. If you did not get this idea from that website, where did you get it from? I am going to keep asking until you answer.
You've never cited an early treatment study. If you ever did, it was the less than 300 person study that ended up being basically a 20 person study because of how bad the methodology was and even that showed beneficial results, not significant because of the low patient count.

I didn't have to get the idea from any website, it's looking at all the studies, which you refrain from doing. There is another site that listed all the studies as well, but I can't recall/re-find it.
 

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
Why'd you pick those ranges when the study itself said the mean range is 4.4 - 6.2?
????
Because it's a histogram, not a measure of the mean range.

I realize they aren't "right on" the line. However, there's a reason why you have 10 studies that all gave very similar values because they used the same methodology.
Is that actually true like you've checked and verified it, or are you just saying it's true?

The vitamin d serum levels are logarithmic so finding an average is kinda pointless. You wanna know stuff like how much vitamin d you need to go from say 10 nmol to 50 nmol, 30 nmol to 50 nmol, and so on. Finding some average isn't really useful because what to supplement with needs to be based on someone's baseline levels. Someone that needs to go up 10 nmols vs someone that needs to go up 25 nmols, you just can't use some average as it might not even work for either.
Yes, you might construct a graph, like, say, this one I quickly ran up. You'll need to see the thumbnail, because the post insert crashes the browser code.

One might indeed note that that is precisely a bone of contention for the authors of that paper: that the Endocrine Society used a rate constant of 2.5 nmol/l/100IUs/day with reference to Vit D, but based that largely from studies of people with higher-end basal blood plasma concentrations, who are not representative of the majority of the population or who would likely most benefit from Vit D supplementation.

Like I just said above, there's no "right" amount of vitamin d needed that will work for everyone.
Yes, as the government guidelines accept. But they've looked through a lot of evidence, and come to the conclusion that 400IUs a day should be enough for 97.5% of the population.

Oh, come on, we all know getting stuff done at any job happens at a snail's pace going through the normal processes. There aren't many "maverick surgeons" because the vast majority of things have well-known treatments. Doctors are mainly "diagnosers" nowadays and apply known treatments. Kory and others that were for steroids were for steroids because they followed the science. You actually got to go to a website to find the 2 or 3 doctors in your state (in the US) that will actually treat early covid.
There is no established treatment for early covid.

You are perfectly free, however, to find someone who will take your money and give you unproven and quite possibly useless treatments. There will only be relatively few certified medical doctors offering this, because it is borderline unethical. Catering to that sort of demand is what alternative medicine and "Wellness" quackery is for.

There is no agreed upon delineation between droplet and airborne transmission. Just tell people if they can get it from the air basically, that's all you gotta do.
There's no agreed on definition of Vit D deficiency either, but I didn't see you complaining then when you wanted to bandy the term around.

Just because there is no universal and standardised boundary does not mean the discrimination lacks validity or usefulness. The CDC should detail this difference because is has recognised scientific relevance. The fact that lots of Joe Averages don't understand what it means doesn't mean the CDC shouldn't provide information.
 

Attachments

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
It's goddamn common sense that the air flow is gonna disperse the droplets. You really have to be in someone's face to spread it outside or just really bad luck of the air flowing right to someone's face.
And it is still a government's job to advise or impose precautionary measures to restrict the spread of disease.

We knew of asymptomatic spread long before the CDC said anything about that.
We had evidence of potential asymptomatic spread. This is not the same as "knew". Eventually, when there was enough evidence, we could take it as known.

You've never cited an early treatment study. If you ever did, it was the less than 300 person study that ended up being basically a 20 person study because of how bad the methodology was and even that showed beneficial results, not significant because of the low patient count.
No, it didn't show beneficial results.

And honestly I forget precisely what paper you even mean, but I seriously doubt you're representing it even half-way accurately.

I didn't have to get the idea from any website, it's looking at all the studies, which you refrain from doing
Right, but as per the above, you think a study that did not demonstrate beneficial results (and clearly states so) demonstrated beneficial results. If you cannot accurately determine even the fundamentals of what scientific papers say, the conclusions you draw from them are meaningless.

I think you need to cite "all the studies", to see whether you have in fact read "all the studies" or even interpreted them accurately. Because I can't help note even that dodgy website you cited supplied "all the studies", and yet even then reveals to someone who knows what they are looking at that a huge number of the studies, including all of the RCTs, show no significant benefit to HCQ.

There is another site that listed all the studies as well, but I can't recall/re-find it.
How convenient.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
8,918
783
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
????
Because it's a histogram, not a measure of the mean range.
Shouldn't the mean range have the most data points?

Is that actually true like you've checked and verified it, or are you just saying it's true?
I looked at a handful of the high averages and low averages and the ones with the higher number gave a lower dosage obviously.

Yes, you might construct a graph, like, say, this one I quickly ran up. You'll need to see the thumbnail, because the post insert crashes the browser code.

One might indeed note that that is precisely a bone of contention for the authors of that paper: that the Endocrine Society used a rate constant of 2.5 nmol/l/100IUs/day with reference to Vit D, but based that largely from studies of people with higher-end basal blood plasma concentrations, who are not representative of the majority of the population or who would likely most benefit from Vit D supplementation.
Again, I don't really get the point of finding an average when the average itself is basically pointless.

Yes, as the government guidelines accept. But they've looked through a lot of evidence, and come to the conclusion that 400IUs a day should be enough for 97.5% of the population.
If 2,000 IUs can't get doctors that measure their vitamin d levels to sufficient levels, then 400 IUs is probably not enough. Again, there's no harm in taking too much unless you go way way way over so why are you so dedicated to this 400 IU number? I'm guessing this is where you got that 97.5% stat from and the second cited study (22) for that stat says you needed 3800 IUs from all sources in a day to maintain the baseline.

There is no established treatment for early covid.

You are perfectly free, however, to find someone who will take your money and give you unproven and quite possibly useless treatments. There will only be relatively few certified medical doctors offering this, because it is borderline unethical. Catering to that sort of demand is what alternative medicine and "Wellness" quackery is for.
Yeah there is. There's plenty of things that work, just because there's not a cure doesn't mean there aren't things that work. Covid is not some drastically different virus that does different things in the body that past viruses haven't done before. And the hospitals aren't taking your $3,000+ treating with remdesivir? Whereas everything else will cost you pennies.

There's no agreed on definition of Vit D deficiency either, but I didn't see you complaining then when you wanted to bandy the term around.

Just because there is no universal and standardised boundary does not mean the discrimination lacks validity or usefulness. The CDC should detail this difference because is has recognised scientific relevance. The fact that lots of Joe Averages don't understand what it means doesn't mean the CDC shouldn't provide information.
Even with the current levels, there's quite a lot of deficient people with regards to vitamin d.

You know what is useful? Telling people basically how they can get infected and what's low/high risk as well. That hasn't been communicated to the public at all. The fact that people made new paths on grass avoiding walking by people says it all. The fact that you have parents of young kids (under 5-6) having them wear masks when the kids don't even have the ACE2 receptors also says it all.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
8,918
783
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
And it is still a government's job to advise or impose precautionary measures to restrict the spread of disease.
And if the government did the same thing for driving a car, nobody would be allowed to drive over 10mph. Do things that actually restrict the spread of the disease vs dumb shit like removing every other swing from the park (that does nothing). Or telling people golfing is safe but not safe if you're using a cart. It's a fucking shitshow.

We had evidence of potential asymptomatic spread. This is not the same as "knew". Eventually, when there was enough evidence, we could take it as known.
We knew, it's basically a 99.9% logical super short step to knowing. You just said you gotta take precautions a second ago and now it's don't take precautions until you're 110% sure of something. You can't have your cake and eat it too. It's a pandemic where people are dying at a fast rate, you can't wait for 100% confirmations unless you wanna have a bunch of people die that really shouldn't have. Delaying the mask recommendation because you were only 99.9% sure of asymptomatic spread was worth it when wearing a mask does no harm?

No, it didn't show beneficial results.

And honestly I forget precisely what paper you even mean, but I seriously doubt you're representing it even half-way accurately.
It was this study. You notice how much of a shit study it is. It's not even 300 people, plus it's young people that will almost certainly be fine with doing nothing. Don't you see how that study would never say HCQ had a statistically significant benefit? Also, hospitalization was less in the HCQ group, not that that proves anything.

Right, but as per the above, you think a study that did not demonstrate beneficial results (and clearly states so) demonstrated beneficial results. If you cannot accurately determine even the fundamentals of what scientific papers say, the conclusions you draw from them are meaningless.

I think you need to cite "all the studies", to see whether you have in fact read "all the studies" or even interpreted them accurately. Because I can't help note even that dodgy website you cited supplied "all the studies", and yet even then reveals to someone who knows what they are looking at that a huge number of the studies, including all of the RCTs, show no significant benefit to HCQ.
What are you talking about? You posted a bogus bias study that was setup so show no significance no matter what the results were. Give any drug to a couple hundred young people and it's gonna show no significance. Yet, I'm the one that can't interpret results of a study?

Where's a 1,000+ early treatment study showing no benefits or worse benefits from HCQ?

How convenient.
It's hard to re-find everything that I found months ago. Why can't people use the C19Study site if you're just looking over studies? I don't care about the graphs and analysis on that site and I've never used any of that in any post I've ever made.
 

Seanchaidh

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 21, 2009
5,241
3,062
118
Country
United States of America
Shouldn't the mean range have the most data points?
Even ignoring that the mean just isn't relevant when making a histogram, no. "The" mean range is not a thing. For virtually any set of discrete data, there will be ways of arbitrarily choosing how far from the mean you want to measure to make "the" mean range either have the most or not the most data points. The number of results that can be placed in an arbitrarily sized bin centered on the mean is generally not meaningful in itself.

For example,
if we have a set of data such that:

Two results are 4
Three results are 5
Five results are 6
Three results are 7
One result is 8

The median is 6. The largest number of results are 6. The mean is a little below 6. Depending on how granular you want to be, "the mean range" can have five results or more-- the most-- or zero results. Does this mean that the data is very normal or that it is very abnormal? This is why what you are apparently trying to do is not a meaningful statistical method.

Refer to the previous discourse on the 68/95/99 rule for the use of an actually meaningful approach that comes to the opposite conclusion you have.
 
Last edited:

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
Shouldn't the mean range have the most data points?
Not necessarily, no, for reasons explained above.

I looked at a handful of the high averages and low averages and the ones with the higher number gave a lower dosage obviously.
So not really, then. It's just a random guesstimate.

Again, I don't really get the point of finding an average when the average itself is basically pointless.
I'm okay with you not getting it. I just think that people who don't get how something works should spend less time trying to explain how that thing works to people who do get it.

If 2,000 IUs can't get doctors that measure their vitamin d levels to sufficient levels, then 400 IUs is probably not enough. Again, there's no harm in taking too much unless you go way way way over so why are you so dedicated to this 400 IU number?
Again, your argument here amounts to "here's John Campbell, and his personal results count for more than an entire body of literature". By analogy, this is like arguing that because Usain Bolt could run 100m in under 10 seconds, every human on the planet can, ignoring all the clear evidence that in fact they can't.

Yeah there is. There's plenty of things that work,
And yet there is a lack of evidence that many of these things work, some despite plentiful studies conducted on them.
 

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
We knew, it's basically a 99.9% logical super short step to knowing.
The road to bad science is paved with ill-judged assumptions and logical leaps.

It was this study. You notice how much of a shit study it is. It's not even 300 people, plus it's young people that will almost certainly be fine with doing nothing. Don't you see how that study would never say HCQ had a statistically significant benefit? Also, hospitalization was less in the HCQ group, not that that proves anything.
There's no particular problem with that study, and you definitely are seriously misrepresenting very seriously to claim it is only of 20 patients. The primary point of measurement was actually viral load, measured in all subjects. This is in fact extremely important, because as you claim yourself, the theorised mechanism of action of HCQ is as an antiviral. If it has no effect on viral load, it therefore does not function as an antiviral. Hospitalisation was merely one of several secondary measures.

In fact, as a sign of due diligence, they did a calculation to work out their study had sufficient statistical power to give an 80% likelihood of showing HCQ would be effective (if it were).

What are you talking about? You posted a bogus bias study that was setup so show no significance no matter what the results were
That's seriously defamatory of the study authors. Unless you have sufficient reason to defend your claim the authors created a fraudulent paper, I think that does not merit further consideration.

Where's a 1,000+ early treatment study showing no benefits or worse benefits from HCQ?
...
It's hard to re-find everything that I found months ago. Why can't people use the C19Study site if you're just looking over studies? I don't care about the graphs and analysis on that site and I've never used any of that in any post I've ever made.
I'm quite happy to use it as a source of papers. Unfortunately, to read through the papers does not reach a happy conclusion. Again, I find it very telling that the 3 RCTs in the 29 studies that website lists do not show a benefit to HCQ for early treatment. but let's take a quick look at some of these 1000+ studies.

For instance, it lists Ip et al as having over 1067 subjects, and the paper finds HCQ beneficial. However, a read through the paper itself reveals that's ~970 non-HCQ and just 97 with HCQ. Due to the size of the HCQ group, it therefore effectively uses a sample size around half as big as the Mitja paper, which you've just complained about for being too small. Plus it's also significantly weaker as a purely observational study.

One might take Lagier et al, (~3700 patients, also suggesting a benefit). This, as with Ip, is just an observational study. Then, a quick scoot through reveals the characteristics of their key comparison groups are very different: the non-HCQ group has a much higher proportion of elderly patients (4-5 times higher for 75+!) and a significantly higher incidence of illnesses such as diabetes, cardiovascular and respiratory disease etc. In fact, I think they effectively say that they wouldn't prescribe HCQ for many of these patients because HCQ was contraindicated by their comorbidities / medications. But those comorbidities can also predispose them to adverse effects from covid-19. This makes this study's findings very problematic.

Next also, if we were to apply the same logic as you applied to Mitja to argue it only had an effective n of ~20, we would find Ip is about the same size (~20) despite a "headline" n value nearly 4 times greater, and Lagier is only about 6 times larger (~120) despite a "headline" n value 14 times larger.

What this tells me is you haven't read these studies, or if you have, you haven't understood them.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
8,918
783
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
Even ignoring that the mean just isn't relevant when making a histogram, no. "The" mean range is not a thing. For virtually any set of discrete data, there will be ways of arbitrarily choosing how far from the mean you want to measure to make "the" mean range either have the most or not the most data points. The number of results that can be placed in an arbitrarily sized bin centered on the mean is generally not meaningful in itself.

For example,
if we have a set of data such that:

Two results are 4
Three results are 5
Five results are 6
Three results are 7
One result is 8

The median is 6. The largest number of results are 6. The mean is a little below 6. Depending on how granular you want to be, "the mean range" can have five results or more-- the most-- or zero results. Does this mean that the data is very normal or that it is very abnormal? This is why what you are apparently trying to do is not a meaningful statistical method.

Refer to the previous discourse on the 68/95/99 rule for the use of an actually meaningful approach that comes to the opposite conclusion you have.
Not necessarily, no, for reasons explained above.
It's sorta a moot point now because the studies used different methods. The studies that gave less vitamin d got a higher number because raising your levels with vitamin d produces a logarithmic curve.


So not really, then. It's just a random guesstimate.
Go ahead and look at all of them if you want. It makes perfect sense that the higher the vitamin d dosage the lower the average per 100 IUs is gonna be.

I'm okay with you not getting it. I just think that people who don't get how something works should spend less time trying to explain how that thing works to people who do get it.
The numbers would be closer if all the studies used the same methods.

Again, your argument here amounts to "here's John Campbell, and his personal results count for more than an entire body of literature". By analogy, this is like arguing that because Usain Bolt could run 100m in under 10 seconds, every human on the planet can, ignoring all the clear evidence that in fact they can't.
Funny how you totally ignore the study where you're 97.5% number came from that says you need 3800 IUs a day to maintain a certain baseline. It's far from just 2 anecdotes.

And yet there is a lack of evidence that many of these things work, some despite plentiful studies conducted on them.
We do know plenty of things work to some degree. We know how to limit cytokine storms for example, covid isn't the first virus where that happens. Vitamin D reduces respiratory track infections. It's why doctors hypothesized steroids would help because they followed past science. You don't have to throw out all the science for every new disease and start from scratch every time. You don't throw away all your Windows knowledge because a new version comes out, Indexing can be disabled for any version of Windows and almost certainly for the next version too.

The road to bad science is paved with ill-judged assumptions and logical leaps.
I think we know that if you have a shitton of virus in your respiratory track, you can infect people. I'm not a doctor but I'm guessing that would be a known thing already. That's why I said 99.9% because I'm not a doctor but it's probably 100%. Even if it's not 100% at that time, it's still way way way way higher to be a fact than whether masks actually do anything, because we have no definitive data showing masks actually work. Why are masks recommended required if we don't know whether they work? Because "better safe than sorry". You seem to be picking and choosing based on your previous biases what we should wait on the data for and what we should use the "better safe than sorry" approach on.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
8,918
783
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
There's no particular problem with that study, and you definitely are seriously misrepresenting very seriously to claim it is only of 20 patients. The primary point of measurement was actually viral load, measured in all subjects. This is in fact extremely important, because as you claim yourself, the theorised mechanism of action of HCQ is as an antiviral. If it has no effect on viral load, it therefore does not function as an antiviral. Hospitalisation was merely one of several secondary measures.

In fact, as a sign of due diligence, they did a calculation to work out their study had sufficient statistical power to give an 80% likelihood of showing HCQ would be effective (if it were).
HCQ alone doesn't stop viral replication, it helps with the cytokine storm. With zinc combined with an ionophore (HCQ or whatever) has been shown to be an antiviral (a weak one but one none the less). Not even 10% of those patients would need hospital care if absolutely nothing was done for them so it becomes a rather small study when you look at the groups that needed hospitalization and compare. And, again, lower hospitalization with HCQ group in that study.

Then why does the conclusion say:
In patients with mild COVID-19, no benefit was observed with HCQ beyond the usual care.

Also, you or a doctor isn't going to know if you'll have mild covid or not. You have mild covid until you don't basically. And yes, if you can predict the future and know you'll have mild covid, you obviously don't need to do anything for it. HCQ helps if used early so you ain't gonna know if the infection will be mild or not when you prescribe it / take it.

That's seriously defamatory of the study authors. Unless you have sufficient reason to defend your claim the authors created a fraudulent paper, I think that does not merit further consideration.
I didn't say it was a fraudulent paper, it was just setup to fail as per the reasons provided above. Studying people that have relatively no issue dealing with covid is likely going to show no benefit, especially when the size of the trial is so small.

I'm quite happy to use it as a source of papers. Unfortunately, to read through the papers does not reach a happy conclusion. Again, I find it very telling that the 3 RCTs in the 29 studies that website lists do not show a benefit to HCQ for early treatment. but let's take a quick look at some of these 1000+ studies.

For instance, it lists Ip et al as having over 1067 subjects, and the paper finds HCQ beneficial. However, a read through the paper itself reveals that's ~970 non-HCQ and just 97 with HCQ. Due to the size of the HCQ group, it therefore effectively uses a sample size around half as big as the Mitja paper, which you've just complained about for being too small. Plus it's also significantly weaker as a purely observational study.

One might take Lagier et al, (~3700 patients, also suggesting a benefit). This, as with Ip, is just an observational study. Then, a quick scoot through reveals the characteristics of their key comparison groups are very different: the non-HCQ group has a much higher proportion of elderly patients (4-5 times higher for 75+!) and a significantly higher incidence of illnesses such as diabetes, cardiovascular and respiratory disease etc. In fact, I think they effectively say that they wouldn't prescribe HCQ for many of these patients because HCQ was contraindicated by their comorbidities / medications. But those comorbidities can also predispose them to adverse effects from covid-19. This makes this study's findings very problematic.

Next also, if we were to apply the same logic as you applied to Mitja to argue it only had an effective n of ~20, we would find Ip is about the same size (~20) despite a "headline" n value nearly 4 times greater, and Lagier is only about 6 times larger (~120) despite a "headline" n value 14 times larger.

What this tells me is you haven't read these studies, or if you have, you haven't understood them.
If HCQ did nothing, wouldn't you find studies showing worse outcomes in the HCQ group just due to pure chance? It's seems like you don't have a study to prove HCQ doesn't do anything and I don't have a study that says it does something. Though, it doesn't harm anyone like previous studies said.
 

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
HCQ alone doesn't stop viral replication, it helps with the cytokine storm. With zinc combined with an ionophore (HCQ or whatever) has been shown to be an antiviral (a weak one but one none the less). Not even 10% of those patients would need hospital care if absolutely nothing was done for them so it becomes a rather small study when you look at the groups that needed hospitalization and compare. And, again, lower hospitalization with HCQ group in that study.
No. There was no difference in hospitalisation. In science, if you want to say something is different, you need to show statistical significance. If there's no statistical significance, you've got nothing.

There is no adequate evidence HCQ works either as an antiviral or against cytokine storm in covid-19

Then why does the conclusion say:
In patients with mild COVID-19, no benefit was observed with HCQ beyond the usual care.
Because there was no benefit observed from HCQ in patients with mild covid-19, obviously. Just like it wasn't any use stopping people getting or surviving severe covid-19, either.

HCQ helps if used early
The body of available evidence does not support that conclusion. Fucking hell, man: the horse is dead, stop flogging it.


I didn't say it was a fraudulent paper, it was just setup to fail as per the reasons provided above.
You called it "bogus" and "bias[ed]". That is an accusation of fraud.

If HCQ did nothing, wouldn't you find studies showing worse outcomes in the HCQ group just due to pure chance?
Not necessarily, given as above "worse" meaning statistically significantly worse.

It's seems like you don't have a study to prove HCQ doesn't do anything and I don't have a study that says it does something. Though, it doesn't harm anyone like previous studies said.
On the contrary, read through those papers and you find that people who took HCQ had a lot more adverse symptoms than those who didn't. They just generally weren't very serious ones. See also the linked Cochrane meta-analysis above.
 

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
It's sorta a moot point now because the studies used different methods. The studies that gave less vitamin d got a higher number because raising your levels with vitamin d produces a logarithmic curve.

Go ahead and look at all of them if you want. It makes perfect sense that the higher the vitamin d dosage the lower the average per 100 IUs is gonna be.

The numbers would be closer if all the studies used the same methods.
I am not convinced you understand what you are even arguing against.

Funny how you totally ignore the study where you're 97.5% number came from that says you need 3800 IUs a day to maintain a certain baseline. It's far from just 2 anecdotes.
??? I have no idea what you think you are referring to.

We do know plenty of things work to some degree. We know how to limit cytokine storms for example, covid isn't the first virus where that happens. Vitamin D reduces respiratory track infections. It's why doctors hypothesized steroids would help because they followed past science. You don't have to throw out all the science for every new disease and start from scratch every time. You don't throw away all your Windows knowledge because a new version comes out, Indexing can be disabled for any version of Windows and almost certainly for the next version too.
And this is what happened. Scientists and medical doctors looked at all the data they had for similar conditions, and applied them. That's why HCQ was theorised, and steroids, and people looked at vitamin D, etc. And so people looked at these hypotheticals, and some worked and some didn't. I just don't understand why you're claiming so fiercely that things that studies can't identify as working work.

Why are masks recommended required if we don't know whether they work? Because "better safe than sorry". You seem to be picking and choosing based on your previous biases what we should wait on the data for and what we should use the "better safe than sorry" approach on.
You argue "better safe than sorry" for masks, but then rage against social distancing outdoors. So kindly don't come at me over that.

Like I have said many times, you want to stuff vitamin D down your throat in a few thousand IUs a day, go for it. I just think we have got enough evidence to say it's very unlikely to be given you a benefit over a fraction of the dose.
 

Seanchaidh

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 21, 2009
5,241
3,062
118
Country
United States of America

I

am

shocked

at this

completely

unpredictable

turn of events

.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
8,918
783
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
I have been eating INSIDE restaurants and it has been wonderful.
Nice. I went to a Korean BBQ place Saturday and it was awesome. I've been dining inside since restaurants opened in Indiana and that was late spring/early summer of last year.

No. There was no difference in hospitalisation. In science, if you want to say something is different, you need to show statistical significance. If there's no statistical significance, you've got nothing.

There is no adequate evidence HCQ works either as an antiviral or against cytokine storm in covid-19
The HCQ group did have less hospitalizations, which can't be significant because of the size of the study.

Because there was no benefit observed from HCQ in patients with mild covid-19, obviously. Just like it wasn't any use stopping people getting or surviving severe covid-19, either.
The point is to stop it from going from mild to severe.

The body of available evidence does not support that conclusion. Fucking hell, man: the horse is dead, stop flogging it.

You can say literally the same thing about masks, there's no data supporting them either.

You called it "bogus" and "bias[ed]". That is an accusation of fraud.
The one paper that The Lancet redacted was fraudulent because of the intent. I don't know (or don't really care) if there was purposeful deceit here. I'm just saying the study was setup to never show statistically significant results regardless of the drug tested. That could be the limit of their resources or whatever.