Claim Gov't Response to COVID Pandemic Helped 'May Lack Empirical Support': Journal 'Science Advances'
Harvard and Stanford researchers "find no patterns in the overall set of models that suggests a clear relationship between COVID-19 government responses and outcomes."
A new study published Wednesday in Science Advances confirms that strong claims about the impact of government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic “may lack empirical support.”
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Science Advances is a peer-reviewed, open-access, multidisciplinary scientific journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
The study authors’ affiliations include the Department of Medicine and the Department of Health Policy at Stanford University and the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School.
In their new publication, the researchers performed a multiverse analysis of nearly 100,000 ways of probing the relationship between COVID government responses and outcomes in 181 countries in 2020-2021.
They looked at data regarding cases, infections, deaths, and all-cause excess deaths.
Among their 99,736 analytic models, only 42% suggested outcomes improved following more stringent federal responses.
“No subanalysis demonstrated a preponderance of helpful or unhelpful associations,” the authors emphasize.
They argue no clear relationship exists between government responses to COVID and outcomes, and that strong claims about their impacts may lack empirical support.
“In summary, we find no patterns in the overall set of models that suggests a clear relationship between COVID-19 government responses and outcomes. Strong claims about government responses’ impacts on COVID-19 may lack empirical support,” the study reads.
“We are left to conclude that strong claims about the impact of government responses on the COVID-19 burden lack empirical support.”
Their paper calls into question the extent to which federal agencies should respond to disease outbreaks.
You can download the full study here:
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