94% of all Aussie Covid deaths occurred in 0.2% of Aussie hospitals, according to NEWLY REVISED data from Lancet HCQ Study authors

The Australian data in the Lancet article suggesting HCQ is unsafe was UNBELIEVABLE.

Now that it has been revised, the data is STILL UNBELIEVABLE

Most quotes are from this excellent report by Guardian Australia…

SAUCE: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/may/28/questions-raised-over-hydroxychloroquine-study-which-caused-who-to-halt-trials-for-covid-19

In the original Lancet article, "It said researchers gained access to data from five hospitals recording 600 Australian Covid-19 patients and 73 Australian deaths as of 21 April."

But that was more total deaths than were reported on that date for the whole nation of Ausralia by the John Hopkins University University database. When asked, "The federal health department confirmed to Guardian Australia that the data collected on notifications of Covid-19 in the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System was not the source for informing the trial."

The Australian data from the Lancet study was literally UNBELIEVABLE, it could not possibly be correct.

When the Guardian Australia followed up with Lancet, "The Lancet told Guardian Australia: “We have asked the authors for clarifications, we know that they are investigating urgently, and we await their reply.” The lead author of the study, Dr Mandeep Mehra, said he had contacted Surgisphere, the company that provided the data, to reconcile the discrepancies with “the utmost urgency”. Surgisphere is described as a healthcare data analytics and medical education company.

In a statement, Surgisphere founder Dr Sapan Desai, also an author on the Lancet paper, said a hospital from Asia had accidentally been included in the Australian data.

He said the error did not change the overall study findings. It did mean that the Australian data in the paper would be revised to four hospitals and 63 deaths."

But is the revised data any more believable? Unfortunately for the Lancet and those who made decisions based on this paper and its conclusions, ABSOULTELY NOT.

How many hospitals are in Australia. Later in the Guardian article, it mentions one clinical trial that is being conducted in 70 Australian hospitals, but the total number of public and private hospitals is nearly 20 times that (1350 hospitals) according to the Australian Institute of health and welfare.

SOURCE: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/hospitals/hospital-resources-2017-18-ahs/contents/hospitals-and-average-available-beds

So here is the question for Sapan Desai and Surgisphere, did 94% (63 of 67) of total Covid-19 deaths in Australia all take place in just 0.2% (4/1350) of hospitals by April 21?

Your revised data is still literally UNBELIEVABLE, it cannot possibly be correct.

What about your conclusions?

Anons, should we be digging on Sapan Desai and Surgisphere?

Open Letter

140+ Scientists send Open Letter to Authors of Lancet HCQ Study with "Concerns regarding the statistical analysis and data integrity"

SAUCE: https://zenodo.org/record/3864691

The main concerns are listed as follows:

1. There was inadequate adjustment for known and measured confounders (disease severity, temporal effects, site effects, dose used).

2. The authors have not adhered to standard practices in the machine learning and statistics community. They have not released their code or data. There is no data/code sharing and availability statement in the paper. The Lancet was among the many signatories on the Wellcome statement on data sharing for COVID-19 studies.

3. There was no ethics review.

4. There was no mention of the countries or hospitals that contributed to the data source and no acknowledgments to their contributions. A request to the authors for information on the contributing centres was denied.

5. Data from Australia are not compatible with government reports (too many cases for just five hospitals, more in-hospital deaths than had occurred in the entire country during the study period). Surgisphere (the data company) have since stated this was an error of classification of one hospital from Asia. This indicates the need for further error checking throughout the database.

6. Data from Africa indicate that nearly 25% of all COVID-19 cases and 40% of all deaths in the continent occurred in Surgisphere-associated hospitals which had sophisticated electronic patient data recording, and patient monitoring able to detect and record “nonsustained [at least 6 secs] or sustained ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation”. Both the numbers of cases and deaths, and the detailed data collection, seem unlikely.

7. Unusually small reported variances in baseline variables, interventions and outcomes between continents (Table S3).

8. Mean daily doses of hydroxychloroquine that are 100 mg higher than FDA recommendations, whereas 66% of the data are from North American hospitals.

9. Implausible ratios of chloroquine to hydroxychloroquine use in some continents.

10. The tight 95% confidence intervals reported for the hazard ratios appear inconsistent with the data. For instance, for the Australian data this would need about double the numbers of recorded deaths as were reported in the paper.

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