Health insurance database analysis failing to adjust for disease severity and not finding a significant difference in time to PCR- for LPV/r and HCQ.There are large differences in severity across groups. Authors did PSM but chose not to prioritize severity, resulting in incomparable groups, e.g., baseline pneumonia of 44% in the HCQ group and 15% in the control group (after PSM). Authors note this but offer no explanation for not correcting for severity: "However, the disease severity and proportion of accompanying pneumonia were still significantly higher in the LPV/r and HCQ-group".


Effect extraction follows pre-specified rules prioritizing more serious outcomes. For an individual study the most serious outcome may have a smaller number of events and lower statistical signficance, however this provides the strongest evidence for the most serious outcomes when combining the results of many trials.