Nate Silver

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

*Symptomatic* breakthrough infections having similar viral loads to *symptomatic* unvaccinated infections would be much less of a problem, both because symptomatic breakthroughs are rare and because people can learn to be more careful (and get tested) when they have symptoms. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

There is also one major caveat that the study authors don't mention: they are only looking at *people who chose to be tested*, which is a lot different than *all breakthrough infections*. Presumably people with symptoms are much more likely to be tested. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Here, finally, is the Provincetown study, which includes several major caveats, most of which are almost completely missing from the hyperbolic news coverage around this. https://t.co/2psyPdVob6 https://t.co/VngcGG8HrP — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Of course it doesn't help when The New York Times takes some new (not yet public or peer-reviewed FWIW) study that says what I wrote above and frames it as some "harrowing new twist that upends everything we know about the coronavirus" or whatever. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@JamesSurowiecki Even that wouldn't necessarily be that informative because most people only come in for testing if they're symptomatic, and symptomatic breakthrough infections having high viral loads doesn't necessarily equate to all breakthrough infections having them. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Vaccinated people are much less likely to become infected with COVID. *Conditional upon becoming infected*, there is some evidence to suggest they carry similar viral loads, but this evidence is quite uncertain, and viral loads do not necessarily equate 1:1 to transmission. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The news is *not* that "vaccinated people easily spread the Delta variant". That reflects a gross misunderstanding of the CDC's evidence, abetted by imprecise and innumerate media coverage. See this thread below. https://t.co/0VawYoB9F6 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Yeah I'm trying to figure out why the CDC put such a negative spin on data that was largely unsurprising and very much in line with the consensus as it has emerged over the past several weeks. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @Nate_Cohn: "The bill’s authors also plan to include language intended to undercut state laws in places like Georgia that they believe w… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

A lot of this is from a failure to conduct real cost-benefit analysis on COVID restrictions. So we wind up with weird heuristics where sometimes risks were "rounded down" to zero even though they were never exactly zero. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I don't know quite the right analogy here, but it's a bit like concluding that earthquake-resistant buildings aren't very effective based solely on studying one magnitude-8.7 earthquake where some of them failed. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@joshtpm @NickAPappas I don't think the conversations are really about mask mandates FWIW. I think they're using mask mandates as a proxy for a broader set of anxieties. Which is frustrating if you (like me) narrowly support the new CDC policy on masks but are strongly opposed to e.g. new lockdowns. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Whether or not that's true of Provincetown per se (I can think of other environments that are even more efficient for transmission, e.g. a crowded weekend in Las Vegas) the bigger problem IMO is that you don't want to make extrapolations from outliers. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@joshtpm @NickAPappas What do you mean the "whole conversation" is about masking? In my feed last night, it was about a bunch of vaccinated blue-checks freaking the eff out about Delta. The arguments about masks have always bored me to tears. I wrote 2 days ago that the new CDC policy seemed fine. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@gregggonsalves You're guessing wrong on my subtext. In a year and a half of arguing about COVID policy, I've never really gotten involved in arguments about masks. I care about school & business closures, social isolation, psychological and emotional harm, limits on travel and movement. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@gregggonsalves Which is perfectly consistent with vaccines having ~80% efficacy against infections given that P-town has extremely high vaccination rates and that infections are clustered. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@joshtpm @NickAPappas Not only am I *not specifically* talking about masks, I'm *specifically not* talking about masks if you want to know the subtext here. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Honestly as long as you're vaccinated and not in some sort of special circumstance you should choose to live your life ~however you want under COVID but don't mistake overcaution for virtue or wisdom. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The CDC has taken a lot of unnecessary abuse. But I don't have much sympathy for a public health agency that doesn't trust the public enough to publish the information it uses to make major public policy decisions. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Hard to think of any compelling public health rationale for the CDC not publishing this data especially given that it is in some tension with other research on this issue. https://t.co/QkozvhioXd https://t.co/SenVpZwENO — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@DCBadger It was an extremely lukewarm take and I think your fiance would be better off if he acknowledged the obvious point that public health responses are in part a reflection of the political preferences of the populations they serve. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

1) Political leaders respond to political incentives rather than public health incentives as narrowly construed. 2) 🔥 This is a good thing since nearly all decisions around COVID policy *are* political in the sense of involving trade-offs between competing interests & values. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

This is misleading since it doesn't net out states like NY where Dems will gain seats due to redistricting. And the overall effect of redistricting would be smaller if Democrats had kept control of the process in states where they hold power instead of ceding it to commissions. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @devisridhar: In a pandemic, waiting & waiting for more data to make a decision has a cost. The cost of time with a virus that has expon… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

People are clever at coming up with superficially persuasive (but ultimately BS) arguments these days. But coming up with persuasive counterarguments is harder and counterarguments to counterarguments are harder still. So they're often a tell when an argument isn't robust. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The anti-anti-remote-schooling takes are pretty bad. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

You don't necessarily have to follow every detail of these studies. But if there are a dozen studies saying the vaccines are ~80% effective against mild Delta cases, and there's one study showing 40%, you probably shouldn't anchor to the outlier. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The Israeli estimate of relatively high immune escape from Delta that a lot of you were freaking out about now looks like it was the result of sloppy statistical analysis. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@allahpundit I'll take the over. I don't blame them for trying but it's not going to be easy to #ZeroCovid the Delta variant when almost none of your population is immune. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @PTetlock: Nate nails it. Expect even top forecasters to make lots of mistakes. So, focus on overall track records & capacity to learn.… — PolitiTweet.org