2 groups of scientists with opposing viewpoints on handling the pandemic write open letters to the chief medical officers
Strangely I found them both compelling, and agree with the majority of both letters
Links in following tweets
1/4
First a group recommending more acknowledgment of non-COVID harms of interventions, and recognition of the age disparity in risk for future interventions
Both lists of signatories contain great people, and people who (IMO) have said some questionable things, or who individually have not got the balance right
Try not to let that skew your opinion
The contents of the letters themselves I found quite reasonable
Good luck CMOs
4/4
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Vinay points correctly to the bias prone endpoint of self reported URTI symptoms and implies the entire difference between groups could be due to “the placebo effect”
The problem is, this is almost
certainly not a result of placebo
It’s detection or ascertainment bias
2/
Vinay describes as much in his piece, when he mentions different interpretations of vague symptoms between people with or without masks depending on their beliefs
Wear a mask and wake up tired? Probably nothing
Not been wearing a mask? Could be the start of something…
3/
The rationale behind this is that some have postulated PASC could be due to viral persistence - SARS-CoV-2 hanging around when it should have been cleared
Anti-virals might help clear the virus and resolve symptoms
2/
The evidence base behind this theory is far from clear, but given the general mess of evidence in the field this seemed like a reasonable trial
It could also serve as possible therapeutic diagnosis (if it works, it gives evidence towards the possible cause)
3/