"The median length of time that businesses stay open is 2 years, most of the businesses that have closed in 2020 did so after 2 years so have we really lost anything?"
"Only 5% of the businesses that closed were debt-free, therefore it's probably just debt that's causing all these COVID-19 economic problems, not the disease"
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3/n I should say at the outset here - the only personal comment I would like to make about Professor Ioannidis is that he is a very smart man who I respect tremendously
I will, however, examine the paper, because I think that is what science is all about
A new report from the International Monetary Fund has a very interesting answer to the question 1/n
2/n The report is here, and well worth reading. At the outset I should say that ALL OF THIS EVIDENCE IS UNCERTAIN
The IMF is great, and has tried very hard to be accurate, but it is important to take care when reading these findings imf.org/en/Publication…
3/n The basic summation is simple:
- lockdowns probably cause economic harm
- large outbreaks of COVID-19 also cause harm
- it is hard to disentangle this complexity
- there are almost certainly situations in which lockdowns are beneficial to the economy
Recently, John Ioannidis, of "Most Published Research Findings Are False" fame, published a commentary piece on COVID-19 and global action
I thought it would be good to do a bit of peer-review on twitter 1/n
2/n You can find the paper here - it is a classic commentary piece, which means it is mostly the perspective of the author: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ec…
3/n Given the author's very strong public stance since early March, it is perhaps unsurprising that the main message of the piece appears to be that COVID-19 is not very bad but government actions are
Safe injecting spaces - while counter-intuitive because you're assisting people in taking drugs - are arguably the most effective way to reduce the harms of some illegal drugs
Men* with deep voices more likely** to be unfaithful***, research**** claims
*Chinese university students
**p=0.018
***to score higher on a self-report tool rating attitudes towards infidelity (r² = 0.22)
****single correlational study, n=234