Data, even bad data, shapes what questions we ask.

This is interesting. We are still in the data netherworld where data is patchy, incomplete, inaccurate, unrepresentative and subject to definitional issues. Nothing can be stated reliable certainty.

But this is an interesting case. One country but three cultures, presumably three population profiles, presumably three dietary customs. While the there might be some single procedural and medical standardization at the national level, it seems that local variances in genetic profile, cultural customs, and/or dietary customs might be more determinative of outcomes than previously suspected.

A strange pattern has emerged in COVID-19 CFRs in Switzerland.
COVID-19 has been twice as likely to kill patients in French-speaking cantons of Switzerland than in German-speaking, and more than twice as likely to kill patients in Italian speaking cantons than in French ones. pic.twitter.com/cTJ4m5xfsR

— Trevor Sutcliffe (@TrevorSutcliffe) March 26, 2020

Click for the thread.

Of course it may be simpler than the above three candidates. Perhaps there is greater commercial and traffic Italy and the Italo-Swiss region and between the Italo-Swiss region and the Franco-Swiss Region than between either of those and the Germano-Swiss region.

All good questions at this point.