Thread by @DellAnnaLuca

So, earlier today I posted a wrong tweet, which I then deleted. Thankfully, it only stayed on for a few minutes.

But I think it's important that I explain what I got wrong and why, for some could benefit too.

(thread)

2/ I was commenting on this chart.

I correctly pointed out that the increase is relative. For example, it doesn't mean that more young people died than old.

However, I also wrongly added that the chart showed the increase in COVID risk for the young.

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1318616993776476162?s=20

3/ I didn't consider that young adults tend to die of causes such as cancer that got impacted negatively by the lockdown (no cures)

The chart being about all-mortality, & the absolute number of young adults deaths being fairly low, the *direct* contribution of COVID might be low

4/ Thanks to @TaylorPearsonMe and Bruno Morgado for swiftly pointing this out to me.

5/ That said, I believe it's important to distinguish between "young people are less at risk" and "this means that the young can expose themselves to the virus" because, of course, the more they do the latter, the less the former becomes valid.

6/ As a side remark, I recall about 3 tweets in which I made a major mistake and retracted shortly thereafter. For all of them, I was at the side of the road in my car.

Note to self: don't tweet while multitasking.

7/ Some asked why the lines drop in the right part of the chart.

I believe it represents delay in reporting and should therefore be discarded as non-significant. I do not know about the US, but in Europe all-causes-mortality data take 1-3 months to show up complete.