Should You Be Afraid? COVID raises risk of long-term brain injury, large U.S. study finds
Statisticians jump to the key early statistical wording in articles. In this case: "Brain and other neurological disorders occurred in 7% more of those who had been infected with COVID compared with a similar group of veterans who had never been infected. That translates into roughly 6.6 million Americans who had brain impairments linked with their COVID infections, the team said. "
The first descriptive sentence describes the discovery which will not be questioned, the second the 6.6 million "inference" goes far off the statistical rails. Take the incremental 7% inference as true to observe this. Those having had COVID and having a brain impairment are occurring at 1.07 times the number of those with brain impairment that have never had COVID. This incremental 7% brain impairment implies that if 6.6 million in the USA were to have incrementally have brain impairment specifically linked with their COVID those already with brain impairment in the USA would be required to be 6.6 million / 7% = 94.3 million. Either the statistical result (6.6 million) is garbage or we are a highly brain impaired nation.
The real impact in terms of the number of individuals impacted caused by a 7% increase in brain impairment hides with the never stated percentage of those likely to have already had brain impairment. Lot's of other interesting statistics are provided in the article many also without any relevant basis for reference, but are not discussed herein.