Illinois Physicist Helps Local Medical Residents With Statistical Analysis

Professor Emeritus Michael Weissman has been helping Champaign’s local medical residents’ journal club for the past 4 years. His role has been to interpret the statistics in the papers the club reviews.  In March he stepped out of his usual role and recommended a topic, the impending pandemic.  One of the papers chosen, The Demand for Inpatient and ICU Beds for COVID-19 in the US: Lessons From Chinese Cities, concerned possible ICU loads as a function of distancing measures.  “Fortunately, so far, we haven't reached the levels anticipated in it,“ reported Weissman.  “This week they have chosen a paper on the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine, Observational Study of Hydroxychloroquine in Hospitalized Patients with Covid-19. These are mainly observational studies rather than randomized controlled trials, so statistical help is more important than usual in evaluating them. I feel very lucky to be able to help out even in a very minor way.”