Nate Silver

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@dmorey Yeah for sure, and the US is also a bit lucky that it peaked in Europe slightly earlier so we can learn from what they're doing. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@conorsen I think somebody NYC based mentioned here the other day how their doc's office is now notifying their patients of test availability. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

4,700 new cases reported yesterday in New York state is the lowest number of new cases there since March 20. Not a ton of testing yesterday but the share of positive tests has also fallen considerably, to 29% from a peak of 50%. (In in NYC, to 30% from a peak of 59%.) https://t.co/EBKzOvP53t — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@conorsen 6 seems to be the *actual* plan in Europe right now, and maybe what we're "evolving" to in the US, whether people want to admit it or not — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@conorsen Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. It's clear that "shut down, for now" has very broad support among both elites *and* the general public. But "for now" is perhaps an important condition on that support, and I don't know how things change if you ask people about the longer term. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

And if there's not consensus around at most a couple of these strategies, one wonders what happens. If you have 30% of people supporting "hard" shutdowns, 30% of people supporting "soft" showdowns, and 40% of people supporting ending shutdowns...I don't know how that plays out. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Some of these are mutually exclusive and some aren't. Some are relatively coherent strategies while others are ad-hoc (at best). Some of them people talked about explicitly and some less so. But the point is, there are a lot of forking paths from the same initial set of actions. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

One thing I think is becoming clear: many people agreed about shutting down as an initial step, but they may also have had very different ideas about what happened after that. Here's a list of some of the different "plans"/rationales/expectations that I've heard. https://t.co/kb8bALJa20 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Although on second thought I'm not so sure that it will play out in so partisan a way. It's possible there are certain high-profile fights (i.e. over beaches) while in practice most states are taking fairly similar baby-steps to re-opening but framing them in different terms. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

If red states open in 2 weeks and blue states stay closed, then in 4-5 weeks you could have a bunch of open red states where case counts are increasing and closed blue states where they're decreasing and by that point perhaps quite low, which will create some weird dynamics. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@mattyglesias I'm seeing more mask-wearing at grocery stores but it feels like people have gotten a bit worse at the 6 foot thing since they started wearing masks. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@thecity2 Let's say that's the same also. I'm just trying to ferret out whether people would prefer stricter lockdowns for shorter or laxer lockdowns for longer, other things held constant. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@thecity2 I'm trying to illustrate the difference between an R of like 0.85 and an R of 0.7 or something. Imagine that the both policies result in the same overall number of cases and deaths in the medium-to-long-run. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Which would you prefer? 1) A stay-at-home order along the lines of what's in place in NY or CA, for 6 weeks. 2) A much stricter order where outdoor exercise is prohibited, a wider range of businesses are closed, delivery is limited, and enforcement is greater—but for 3 weeks. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

This is a pretty decent-looking report. Tests up and cases down. Caveats: A lot of the decline in positive test rates has been driven by New York, which has seen sharp declines in recent days. Reporting on deaths is typically slower on weekends and Mondays. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

US daily numbers via @COVID19Tracking: Newly-reported deaths: Today: 1,654 Yesterday: 1,774 One week ago (4/12): 1,496 Newly-reported cases: T: 27K Y: 28K 4/12: 29K Newly-reported tests: T: 167K Y: 141K 4/12: 140K Share of tests positive: T: 16% Y: 20% 4/12: 21% — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

My guess is that the more reliable indication of fatigue with social distancing will not be loud protests but quiet acts of disobedience. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@kmedved @kevin Yeah NY's data was erratically-reported for a while but they have a new platform that's been pretty good. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@kmedved @kevin In this case, though, I think the various indicators tell a fairly consistent story of there possibly having been a greater deceleration recently. We'll know more in a few days... — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@kmedved @kevin I've spent a decent amount of time looking at NY's positive/negative tests data and it is fairly smooth, though there was one weird day earlier this week. (Another good day just posted now, fwiw; only a 31% positive rate in NYC.) — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@thecity2 @kmedved @kevin It could conceivably have some effect but there are a lot of unknowns. Among other things, I wish we knew more about who the new cases are. What share are essential workers? What share is household transmission? — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@kmedved @kevin If you do it based on the share of positive tests, then R indeed looked like 0.9 for somer period of time, but the past few days look more like 0.8, which is also true for the new hospitalizations and deaths data. Don't know if that's the start of something or just a quirk. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Either way, that's not a ton of room to work with. It's good that R is meaningfully lower than 1, so cases are shrinking instead of growing, but it's unclear how much you can re-open while keeping it <=1. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

From eyeballing the recent data, I wonder if that's a hair too pessimistic. The deceleration across various metrics has been steeper over the past few days, maybe more in line with an 0.8 or 0.85. Italy claims to have a post-lockdown R of 0.8. https://t.co/KdVG69pH1n — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Cuomo just said (without referring to it as such) that New York's R is 0.9, i.e. each new infected person is infecting 0.9 more people. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

There's barely any mention in here (just one passing reference) that stay-at-home orders are quite popular for the time being, and far more Americans are worried about opening up too early than too late. https://t.co/DG07xLccV4 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@TheJedReport @COVID19Tracking Yeah there's been a quite reliable ~7 day lag between cases and deaths in the US. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Note though that some of the positive news of late has been driven by NY/NJ/CT, which does seem to have turned some kind of corner. It's possible we could get a bimodal peak if NY/NJ/CT decline while the numbers elsewhere worsen. https://t.co/aj7TMcGPxc — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Today we hit a positive milestone: it was the first day on which the number of deaths was less than on the same day a week earlier. Let's watch to see if we can get a few more of those in the next several days. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

US daily numbers via @COVID19Tracking: Newly-reported deaths: Today: 1,774 Yesterday: 2,069 One week ago (4/11): 1,867 Newly-reported cases: T: 26K Y: 31K 4/11: 30K Newly-reported tests: T: 133K Y: 156K 4/11: 136K Share of positive tests: T: 20% Y: 20% 4/11: 22% — PolitiTweet.org