Tag: COVID-19

  • Control yourself: the self-controlled case series

    Control yourself: the self-controlled case series

    Does influenza increase the risk of acute myocardial infarction (AMI)? Do bivalent mRNA COVID-19 vaccines cause acute ischemic stroke? Relevant questions, but difficult to answer. Incidences of both outcomes are low, precluding an answer from randomised trials (in case of vaccination) and analyses from observational studies will be flawed by…

  • How to change RCT-based “definitive” practice 

    How to change RCT-based “definitive” practice 

    Randomised controlled trials (RCT) provide the highest level of evidence. But what to do if a disease changes? Only a new RCT can provide sufficient evidence to change the associated RCT-based practice.

  • COVID-19: An outbreak of books

    COVID-19: An outbreak of books

    Twenty-nine years ago, Bob Weinstein told me that “every outbreak is in fact three outbreaks: spread of a pathogen, followed by an outbreak of meetings, followed by an outbreak of publications.” A pandemic adds a next level: an outbreak of books.

  • Comparing COVID-19 and influenza

    Comparing COVID-19 and influenza

    Last week, this paper in Lancet ID generated heated (and mostly negative) discussions on X, but I suspect that selection bias may have had a role in that. What was (and was not) investigated? And how?  

  • Are you safe in a hospital?

    Are you safe in a hospital?

    What do you see when you think back to hospital wards during the heath of the COVID-19 pandemic? Overcrowded, understaffed, chaos. What would the risk be for hospitalised patients not yet infected with SARS-CoV2 in those days?