Nate Silver

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Periodic reminder that the rate of increase (R) is not the only thing that matters for measuring COVID, and often not the most important thing. The volume of active cases is really important too. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Plus, a record number of cases and the highest positive test rate since May 6. Just not really any good news here. The numbers in the Northeast still look pretty good, I suppose, but it's been a long time since that region was the main source of concern. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

There are possibly still some lingering effects from the 3-day weekend, but that isn't that much consolation. There were a total of 2,576 deaths over the 5-day period Saturday-Wednesday, as compared with 2,407 for the same period a week ago. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

US daily numbers via @COVID19Tracking. Awful day. Newly reported deaths Today: 897 Yesterday: 922 One week ago (7/1): 701 Newly reported cases T: 62K* Y: 52K 7/1: 53K Newly reported tests T: 666K Y: 641K 7/1: 633K Positive test rate T: 9.3% Y: 8.1% 7/1: 8.4% * record — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Not looking to get into too much of the meta stuff, but I think people underrate the impact of the Trumpian wing of the Republican Party largely having opted into an alternative news ecosystem (including Fox News), which shifts the center of gravity in the "mainstream" ecosystem. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

* Namely, most of the Americas; Russia; South Africa; increasingly, South Asia and the Middle East. And Western Europe is a complicated case. I'm not sure how much credit you can give to countries (e.g. Italy) that had a really bad outbreak before but have it under control now. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Where I differ a bit from the consensus is I think people maybe overestimate how easy it was ever going to be to develop & execute this strategy, especially in a large, polarized country like the US. A LOT of countries are having issues.* But we obviously haven't even come close. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Something that I think gets lost is: the plan was not supposed to be to have lockdowns⁠—or related things like school closures⁠—until a vaccine. Lockdowns suck. ⁠It was to use the time in lockdown to develop a more sustainable medium-term strategy. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

National polls have been pretty steady for a couple of weeks now, but if anything, Biden's lead has grown a bit. Our polling average now has him +9.7 nationally. https://t.co/cy51vc5isJ https://t.co/1cvLiEGSsR — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @williamfleitch: @BenjySarlin @NateSilver538 This is what I was saying yesterday. His mere presence makes it impossible to have serious… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

You can already see elite opinion on here changing to "of course we can't open schools during a pandemic!!" And since nobody had terribly strong priors—and since the general public doesn't trust Trump on this stuff either—that'll probably filter into broader public opinion. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Yeah, schools reopening is an issue that might actually be an effective wedge if Trump had a lighter touch (I think it's a genuinely very difficult question) but now he's taking on the CDC and local/state governments and seems likely to move public opinion against him. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @juruwolfe: .@ryanabest shows that confederate statues were never really about preserving history (using incredible data collected by @s… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

(For me, it's Thai food, homemade BBQ ribs and—just gotta be honest!—fast food burgers.) — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

What foods (or drinks) have you come to most appreciate during the pandemic? — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

With some states still left to vote or still counting ballots, Biden (17.1m+ votes) seems like a decent bet to break the Obama/Clinton 2008 record (17.5m votes each) for most votes received in a party primary. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @FiveThirtyEight: What to look for in a face mask, according to science --> https://t.co/qDYDIQNTZy — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

One thing that seems particularly important to sort out is to disaggregate the effects of 1) weather; 2) indoor vs. outdoor activity; 3) HVAC/air circulation systems. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

There were, however, more cases reported over the 4-day period this week (49K/day) than last week (42K), and with a higher positive test rate (~8% vs. ~7%). Maybe you can squint and claim there's a plateau vs. late last week, but I wouldn't count on that given weekend weirdness. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

That is, from Sat.-Tues. last week, 1706 deaths were reported, as compared to 1676 this week. So, the numbers today were about what you might have expected given light reporting over the weekend. We'll have to see if we get back to normal tomorrow or it's another high number. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

As expected, we made up for low death tolls over the holiday weekend with a high one today; 919 is the highest death toll since June 3 (excluding a day when NJ changed its reporting standards). However, the combined Saturday-Tuesday numbers are similar to last week. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

US numbers via @COVID19Tracking: ⚠️ CAUTION—HOLIDAY WEEKEND ⚠️ Newly reported deaths Today: 919 Yesterday: 242 One week ago (6/30): 596 Newly reported cases T: 52K Y: 47K 6/30: 44K Newly reported tests T: 653K Y: 518K 6/30: 637K Positive test rate T: 7.9% Y: 9.0% 6/30: 7.0% — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @ameliatd: The economists in our biweekly survey are very worried about what will happen if Congress doesn't bail out the states or exte… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

That's not to say governmental responses don't matter. But if they account for, say, 40% in the variation in spread across countries and people act as though it's 90%, that's going to lead to a lot of misattribution of causes that will likely worsen our response in the long run. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Like @tylercowen, I wish there was more focus on why there are such stark regional differences in the spread of coronavirus across the globe even as each country within a region might have relatively different responses. https://t.co/BTEe6ma05H https://t.co/I8TgRiAA56 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Folks, I told you not to get too excited about low death tolls over the weekend, since some states did very little reporting over the holidays. But the flip side of that is there are going to be some big numbers today that actually represent 3-4 days of backlog. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

But it does mean that folks are going to have to get used to carefully monitoring the data, including not only the number of cases but their severity, and react accordingly, including difficult decisions about trade-offs, acceptable levels of risk, etc. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

That's not meant to sound pessimistic. I actually think (as you can see in that thread) there's been a fair amount of good news as far as the long term goes (e.g. progress on vaccines and treatments), even though the medium term outlook is quite awful (in the US, at least). — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

An important theme here is that almost all of the endgames for COVID involve gradual improvement (either in the number of people getting it, how deadly it is, or both) rather than some miraculous fix. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Yeah, it's almost like the Bizarro Reverse Overton Window where positions that might otherwise be viewed as "moderate" seem more extreme because they're associated with Trump. — PolitiTweet.org