Thanks for your posts
@Jamie H @copilost @urbanracer @DavidGrahamJones. I agree with the explanation on how to read the risk factors by
@copilost "paper reports adjusted hazard. That means if you compare two people who are same age, sex, BMI, etc etc for everything on the list in the table then the hazard reported for diabetes is the additional hazard regardless of all the other factors."
Two more points: i) When you multiply two risks from this study, correlations are neglected, so it could be an overestimate
ii) while usually the baseline is clear, e.g. no diabetes, for the age related risks, the comparison is made with respect to the 50 to 59 age bracket, so
@Jamie H risk is 7% compare to an average 50 to 59 year old.
I use this comment to discuss how science works: We are still learning about Covid. While scientists in the field broadly agree on many issues (spreading and transmission), many questions are still not clear (why does it affect the elderly and diabetics more?, what are the causal mechanism?). When scienties carry out a study, they write a paper with the results and submit it, e.g. to Medrxiv and to a journal such as bmj. At this time the paper will undergo peer review. This means that other specialists in the field will study the paper and try to establish if the methods and results are correct and compare it with other findings. Basically they'll do their best to prove the study wrong. This is looks like scientists not being able to agree on anything, but it is actually not only important but also very healthy. This is how science progresses. Only peer-reviewed results will be accepted by the journals.
We have to be careful when we look at results. Before peer review results could actually be wrong. If different groups arrive at the same result confidence in a result will grow. I try to read papers like the one I quoted at the beginning of the thread. These are made by expert groups and their methods are explained. While I am not a specialist, a paper gives me the chance to read how a result was reached.
Unfortunately many media like to pick up raw numbers such the fact that a quarter of hospital fatalities also had diabetes. Taking such a number without context can easily lead to the wrong conclusion, be used to fear monger in this case, but also to trivialise - R is smaller than one - therefore the lockdown was not required - depending on the intention.