Nate Silver

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@cgseife @jayrosen_nyu @edyong209 Your argument is rather inconsistent, dude. Lots of technical objections to how we might compare countries, and then blanket objections to the entire process of comparing countries and ad hominem attacks about election forecasts? — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@cgseife @jayrosen_nyu @edyong209 I don't know, this is suspiciously adjacent to "let's ignore the evidence/data if it contradicts the prevailing narrative". Which is an enormous problem in coverage of politics, sports, epidemic disease and almost every other subject. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

On a basic level the obvious takes are 1) it won't matter much 2) to the extent it does, Amash is conservative and Trump sort-of-is also, albeit in very different ways, so that's not great for Trump. But there will be lots of overthinking based on relatively little evidence. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Feels like the conventional wisdom will be "actually, Amash running is good for Trump" when it might be but probably won't be. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Trump's rally-around-the-flag bounce from coronavirus, such as it was, is now totally gone. https://t.co/Vfmzd6B2ps https://t.co/600qZK8lCR — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@jayrosen_nyu @edyong209 ...given that they occur at what's basically a regional or metropolitan area level. The US has one outbreak in NYC that's as bad as anywhere in the world (maybe Lombardy is worse; it's close). OTOH, the median state has lower per-capita fatalities than Canada or Germany. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@jayrosen_nyu @edyong209 Yep, there are people that make that claim, including people who I generally think are very wise, but I think it's wrong. We certainly do not have the worst outbreak on a per-capita basis. And I'm not sure it makes sense to talk about national outbreaks anyway... — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@jayrosen_nyu A lot of people, including me, would dispute the claim that the US has the worst outbreak in the world. And not in a "both sides" way either (I think the claim is basically wrong). I'm not sure it should be your starting/focal point for your critique of press coverage re: Trump. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@conorsen States could also really use systems for faster detection. Do a constant, random sample of tests (n = 500/day), or set triggers based on emergency room visits. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Possible Step 5) — not sure about this one — Then maybe more drastic changes are made and you do get a big spike, perhaps in fall where there are more vectors for spread (more time spent indoors, schools reopen, etc.) especially if weather is a factor. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Step 2) In fact, changes are incremental, people are cautious (e.g. by wearing masks), some people stay home, perhaps weather and improved testing helps a bit. Step 3) Cases flatline or get modestly worse, but far short of dire predictions. Step 4) "See, experts wrong again!" — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The following dynamic seems reasonably likely to me: Step 1) News articles emphasize dire predictions for reopening based on models that wrongly assume all restrictions are lifted and people go totally back to normal. https://t.co/uC32932Kwm — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

On the cases, though, that data has started to look better. Tests up, cases down, so the percentage of positive tests is down quite a bit. A lot of this is driven by NY state, which is down to just 16% positives in its testing today (19% for NYC) from a peak of 50% (59% for NYC). — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

To me, the question is less about whether the death toll has hit an interim peak (possibly yes) but how slow the comedown will be (possibly quite slow, especially if states start easing up restrictions) and/or whether there will be another peak. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Tuesdays are usually terrible as many states don't certify many deaths over the weekend, leading to a pileup on Tuesday. This Tuesday was also bad, but less bad than the two prior Tuesdays. Overall, the past 7 days have averaged 1,722 deaths, vs. 2,058 in the 7 days before that. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

US daily numbers via @COVID19Tracking: Newly reported deaths Today: 2,198 Yesterday: 1,163 One week ago (4/21): 2,558 Newly reported cases: T: 24K Y: 22K 4/21: 26K Newly reported tests: T: 202K Y*: 190K 4/21: 148K Share of tests positive: T: 12% Y: 11% 4/21: 17% * See note: https://t.co/sceNVZI9fe — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

It may be lucky the initial wave of coronavirus hit in the spring instead of the fall. It means we can rely more on outdoor activity—and possibly benefit a bit from the weather, though that's debated—while better solutions (testing, tracing, treatments) hopefully get into place. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

If anything, these gaps have accelerated a bit. The rate of positive tests seems to be coming down a bit faster in Manhattan and Brooklyn, possibly because they have a lower share of essential workers than Bronx/Queens/SI. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Share of the population that has tested positive by NYC borough: Bronx: 2.5% Staten Island: 2.4% Queens: 2.2% Brooklyn: 1.7% Manhattan: 1.3% — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@thecity2 @kmedved I don't think many places apart from Sweden are treating herd immunity as inevitable. That is, they want to get the overall number of cases low enough that even if you spread at R=1.0/1.1 from there, it would take a long time and hopefully you get treatments/vaccines before then. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

We do have better data now on what % of infections result in hospitalizations. That can help to design better policy, also. In NY (both NYC and Upstate) about 2% of *infections* (*not* known cases) have produced hospitalizations if you believe the state's seroprevalence numbers. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I think Cuomo/NY deserve a lot of credit for explicitly saying what the policy is and attaching concrete benchmarks to it. Note also that there are actually 2 constraints, that pertain to both the growth rate and the level: R must be <1.1 and hospitals/ICUs must be <70% capacity. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@thecity2 @kmedved I would say that countries have been surprisingly good at "guessing" the right level of R to match what I perceive to be their (often not explicitly stated) policy objectives. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@thecity2 @kmedved It's Sweden-adjacent. But Sweden didn't have the period of suppression up front, and I think Sweden is implicitly targeting an R in the low 1's, rather than ~1.0. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@kmedved He's talking about the opposite, re-opening Upstate first. But, yeah, we'll see. Plausible that it will be surprisingly "easy" to keep R low-ish in NYC if those serology numbers are right. Also possible it merely offsets factors that make R inherently high in NYC. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

If true (and I can think of some confounders so I'm not 100% confident) this seems quite important. The fatality rate wouldn't be ~constant across different places. It would be worse in places with severe outbreaks when people are exposed multiple times. https://t.co/rGAEzPsghG https://t.co/zqmF9c2xxE — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Cuomo almost literally just said this! He wants to keep R-effective below 1.1. https://t.co/n7tvBYhCii — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

But many states and countries may implicitly (or even explicitly e.g. Germany) act as though they have an R "budget". If contract tracing improves, for instance, they may be able to relax social distancing more to stay within their R budget of ~1.0. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

"Somewhere in the vicinity" and "low enough level" are doing a lot of work there. There may be big benefits from reducing the overall caseload to the point where you can do reasonably effective contact tracing. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

It kind of seems like everyone is doing suppitigation where they'll do enough to keep R somewhere in the vicinity of 1 once cases get down to a low enough level. — PolitiTweet.org