Nate Silver

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @Nate_Cohn: Trump's disapproval rating is at 55.6 among RV/LV polls, according to FiveThirtyEight. It's the highest in 2.5 years https:/… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

A lot of things are possible in the coronavirus death count in the US, ranging from a pretty big spike in the coming weeks to a continued decline, and I'd think people might want to be careful before making overly confident predictions about it. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@CT_Bergstrom @BillHanage @mattyglesias I think because there was so much consensus around the first step (lock down), it maybe concealed some disagreement about subsequent steps. Also, I'm not sure people had fully thought thru the next steps. So, I'm empathic and IMO the consensus on the first step was valuable. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@CT_Bergstrom @BillHanage @mattyglesias I definitely never thought of you (or other mainstream US health experts) as advocating for a herd immunity strategy. But, early March was a confusing time! I think I mostly interpreted the consensus as "lock down now, and then figure out the medium-term plan later..." — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@CT_Bergstrom @BillHanage @mattyglesias Because it's not what you said earlier in March. And at the very least, you ought to understand how the public might have been confused. This is not a productive conversation to have and I'm not inclined to engage in it further. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@BillHanage @CT_Bergstrom @mattyglesias I've learned a lot from you and from Carl over the course of this pandemic, and I'm confident you've both had net-net positive contributions to the public welfare over the course of this, but this is just getting very weird and gaslighting-y about what "fallen the curve" meant. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

There have been some interesting papers recently on why death rates have fallen in Italy, even once you control for age. But the theories are speculative and we could easily see spikes in the next week or two. So probably best to prepare for the worst (and hope for the best). — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

So, this report is consistent with what we've been seeing, but a more extreme version of it. Look at how much cases have jumped from last Sunday! And the positive test rate is the highest since May 10! Not good! But, this is the fewest deaths reported in a day since March 25. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

US daily numbers via @COVID19Tracking: Newly reported deaths Today: 273 Yesterday: 506 One week ago (6/21): 297 Newly reported cases T: 42K Y: 43K 6/21: 27K Newly reported tests T: 539K Y: 591K 6/21: 512K Positive test rate T: 7.8% Y: 7.4% 6/21: 5.3% — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@CT_Bergstrom @mattyglesias I would probably draw a clearer distinction than Matt does between the underlying science, which I generally think has been extremely impressive, and the communication/messaging which hasn't always been. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@CT_Bergstrom @mattyglesias C'mon Carl, you're smarter than this. The world is complicated, and it's possible for the White House to have made some enormously consequential fuck-ups, but for public health communicators to also have made some moderately consequential fuck-ups that are worthy of discussion. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@BillHanage @CT_Bergstrom @mattyglesias There were certainly many, many versions of this image circulated, which pretty clearly implies a longer, flatter plateau as opposed to a sharp peak, but with little overall reduction in caseload. https://t.co/vXdvpsG70k — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@BillHanage @CT_Bergstrom @mattyglesias I'd be willing to bet that if you looked back at how the phrase was used contemporaneously in March, there were quite a few (a majority? IDK) experts who meant it to mean mitigation and *many* journalists/"interpreters" who understood it that way. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@CT_Bergstrom @mattyglesias The plain-language meaning is maybe closer to the sense in which it meant mitigation rather than suppression. But mostly it was just ambiguous. Ambiguity can be useful for getting people on board with a program but can also cause misunderstandings later (see: "Medicare for All"). — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@CT_Bergstrom @mattyglesias The plain-language meaning is maybe closer to the sense in which it meant suppression rather than mitigation. But mostly it was just ambiguous. Ambiguity can be useful for getting people on board with a program but can also cause misunderstandings later (see: "Medicare for All"). — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@CT_Bergstrom @mattyglesias It's inarguable IMO that "flatten the curve" meant different things to different people, both among experts who were using the phrase and among laypeople who were engaging in good-faith efforts to use it as a slogan to compel *some* action instead of nothing. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

p.s. It's quite possible that the Northeast will have a second wave, either now or in the fall once doing things outdoors is less viable. But, the same is potentially true for Europe, also. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The combo of being able to shift most activities outdoors, 10-25% (depending on the metro area) seroprevalence and people generally being more conscientious because their areas had bad outbreaks before likely matters a LOT. NYC and Paris have all of those "tools". AZ does not. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

People in NYC and elsewhere in the Northeast are eating in outdoor bars and restaurants (indoors in places too) and the numbers in the NE generally look a lot like Europe's, which may not be a coincidence since they have similar climates (nice outside in June) and seroprevalence. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Indeed, there's some evidence that fatalism can reduce social distancing, etc. https://t.co/BOkCLk2BTA * Is it right? The critique of leadership is right IMO, especially if you're taking about the White House (states are more of a mixed bag). The rest of it, I don't know. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Contrast that with "because our leadership is so incompetent and you're all so selfish and impatient, the US is totally screwed," which is the theme of a lot of what you hear these days. Even if it's right* it's not exactly very motivating. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

There's also a tone of empathy here that IMO is sometimes lacking. Basically "Yeah, this kind of sucks. But we are going to be able to get *some* things back in the medium term. And the sacrifices will help us get back to normal in the long term, which isn't that far away." — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @ABCPolitics: “Trump is starting to get deeper into underdog territory. There are really three things that make his path harder than it… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The measured doses of long-term optimism here are an interesting contrast to most of the public health messaging and (although I'm not saying this is Gottlieb's intention) I suspect might be helpful for motivating support for difficult medium-term measures. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

There should probably have been more postmortems about the Bloomberg primary campaign, the degree to which it got overhyped by the media, and what it says about the importance (or lack thereof) of money in campaigns. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

So basically, the same story as the past several days. Cases way up, in a way that testing alone can't explain. Deaths continue to trend flat/downward but it's very unclear how long that will hold. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Don't have time to do the usual thread right now but @COVID19Tracking reports 43k! new cases out of 591k new tests, for a 7.4% positive rate. That compares to 32k new cases last Saturday. But 506 deaths reported today, down a bit from 621 last Saturday. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Empirically it's generally best to treat unelected incumbents as open-seat races. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Case numbers don't always have strong weekend/weekday effects. That's more an issue for deaths, which require additional layers of certification. Also, Saturday is basically a weekday since Sat. reports mostly reflect what happens on Fridays. So decent chance of a record today. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Biden's comparative strength among older voters pushes Florida closer to the tipping point and probably makes Texas more redundant. You can imagine that would be different though for a candidate trying to capitalize on youth turnout. — PolitiTweet.org