3/n For reference, if you've forgotten, the original article basically argued that "more" restrictive non-pharmaceutical interventions (mrNPIs) such as lockdowns didn't work to prevent COVID-19 cases
It is MASSIVELY popular, with an Altmetric of 19k and dozens of citations
4/n Our basic arguments are pretty simple:
1. Sample size - this study uses a very small sample. That's not really debated by the authors, and it's a limitation
5/n (Weirdly, they have also contradicted their original paper in the replies to the piece - where before they said that their paper had data for every country available, they're now saying they applied a strange exclusion)
6/n 2. The classification of countries as "high" or "low" restriction is arbitrary. In their reply, the authors literally just contradicted us, so we've now got quite a bit of text demonstrating why this is an issue
7/n This is pretty simple - if you don't explain why (say) South Korea is a "low" restriction country, how can we compare it to "high" restriction ones? The categorization is fundamental to the entire paper
8/n 3. Issues with the model. In particular, the policy variable
9/n 4. Issues with the use of time lags, and the time period studied
In particular, the authors say that they analyzed the data up until the "elimination of rapid growth in the first wave"
10/n This is a problem because it means that the analysis is entirely limited to the 'upwards' part of the epidemic curve
If mrNPIs have an effect that is mostly seen on the decline, this would by definition be missed
11/n 5. While we also had some quibbles about language, the final major argument is to do with the model again
12/n Ultimately, we still have the same overall gripe. It is pretty much impossible from the evidence presented in the original research to conclude that mrNPIs work or do not
13/n Indeed, as we point out, unless the authors spend some time delineating exactly what a "more" or "less" restrictive response to COVID-19 actually is, there isn't much you can take home from the analysis anyway
14/n My personal position remains mostly the same on these interventions, that more restrictive ones probably weren't that beneficial in the early days of the pandemic, but that it's really, really hard to know either way
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The bottom line is pretty depressing - we've spent months arguing back and forth, meanwhile this paper has had a HUGE impact and probably impacted policy decisions across the world
Thing is, our debate about this article has been FAST by academic standards
Three letters/responses for a single article published in 6 months? Snappy by many standards
There is now some reasonably strong evidence that non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19 ("lockdowns") were associated with decreased short-term suicides in several locations in the world
In a number of other places, while not associated with a decrease, they were also not associated with an increase either. In fact, best evidence suggests no link between lockdowns and an increased short-term suicide rate
One of the most bizarre things is that whenever you point out the fact that suicide rates have not generally increased during lockdowns or indeed the pandemic, people get very angry at you
Personally, I think it's quite a good thing that there have been fewer suicides
We often discuss academic "silencing" as a sort of nasty attack on people's credentials, but rarely does that include police detectives investigating people for publishing scientific articles 👀👀👀
And while I have absolutely no expertise in paediatric forensics, I've read Dr. Brook's piece which while retracted is still available as a preprint, and it does not seem like a wild and unscientific document researchgate.net/profile/C-Broo…
2/n The article reports a survey that was run by @smh and @theage talking to adults about whether they were "likely" to be vaccinated "in the months ahead"
3/n According to the article, with nearly a third responding that they were unlikely to be vaccinated, there is a serious reason for concern representing an "alarming level of vaccine hesitancy"
Graduate students are the backbone of all scientific endeavours, and often do amazing work without which we would all be lost
Perhaps more importantly, it is fundamentally unscientific to argue that someone's publication record makes any difference to the truth of their arguments