Second versus first wave of COVID-19 deaths: Shifts in age distribution and in nursing home fatalities

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Abstract

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.11.28.20240366: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical analyses were run in STATA (10).
    STATA
    suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Limitations: Some limitations need to be discussed. First, age information was missing on some deaths, but this pertained to very few fatalities and it is unlikely to have created systematic bias in the comparison of first versus second waves. Second, many nursing home deaths have substantial ambiguity in their attribution to COVID-19, especially when there is no test confirmation. We tried to use data with consistent definitions and approaches in the two waves, but the two periods may still differ, e.g. typically more testing was done in the second wave. If anything, this would usually tend to increase the number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes in the second wave. Third, it would be useful to understand whether there are differences between the two waves in the share of deaths in people without underlying conditions and/or specific risk profiles. This could give additional insights about the relative exposure and protection of these groups in the two time periods. However, such data are very sparse in currently available situational reports (e.g., 22, 23). Fourth, we did not find sufficiently detailed data on age distribution of COVID-19 deaths even for some high-income countries. This is a deficiency that could be quickly corrected in country-level situational reports worldwide. Finally, we found very sparse data from middle-income countries and no data from low-income countries. However, most low-income countries have not had a trough separating two waves. In...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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