Thread by @PanData19

One of the most striking features of the covid story is the huge geographic disparity in mortality rates. Follow this link to see Panda’s version 1.2 of our further exploration into the determinants of inter-country variation in covid mortality. pandata.org.za/papers/
1/12

The expected suspects register: age & comorbidity prevalence. Obesity shows up—independently of those. Half of inter-country variance is absorbed by these three.
2/12

Lockdown stringency registers another round zero, with respect to both deaths and duration to peak. As always, we invite evidence to the contrary, though we have learnt to expect little.
3/12

There will always be a significant unexplained residual. Reporting protocols differ a great deal among countries.
4/12

But this is the sort of work that will be required to escape the tedium of the “secret sauce of pairwise comparisons”. The Sweden-Finland cherry-picking dichotomy must yield to a robust survey of the world, assuming team lockdown can retain a link to sanity for the duration.
5/12

We’re tiring of pointing out that the Lithuania-Belarus dichotomy yields the opposite outcome, only to be told that we ought to be taking into account “other factors”; to which a “couldn’t agree more” elicits glazed stupor.
6/12

For those battling to believe the absence of a lockdown impact on curve-flattening, recall that the epidemiologists’ predictions of resurgence after lockdown suspension never transpired. This was already enough to shatter their dream of lockdown effectiveness.
7/12

We reference a strong statistical relevance for blood type: both rhesus factor and one of (presence of B antigens) and (absence of A antibodies). Absent a coherent explanation we simply invite enlightenment.
8/12

Health expenditure makes an appearance, though we find the “harvest theory” somewhat gruesome. Hygiene theory is upturned by obesity. Or is it the other way round?
9/12

Our colleagues had previously battled to tease out any relevance from density, latitude, hospital beds per capita and public transport reliance. This kind of process requires much creative thinking, mostly leading to a consoling whisky.
10/12

Promising factors include virulence of the prior flu season and the number of legs on the local caterpillar species. We're still looking for a reliable vitamin D series. If you have one, let us know.
11/12

This is work in progress & we fully expect to amend it. Bring on your finest theories, though please hold off on the BCG story. We tested it and it gets nixed early on. We didn’t even get around to reporting it, but this is Twitter & it’s where research has been happening!
12/12