Nate Silver

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

In certain respects, it's good in the long term if there are more undetected cases. It means the infection fatality rate and the rate of severe cases is lower. It also means later on there could be some benefits from herd immunity in some of the worst-affected areas (e.g. Spain). — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

This would imply somewhere between 800K and 3.6m cases in the UK, as compared to a reported total of 22,000. That would mean cases had been undercounted by a magnitude of ~35x to ~160x. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Reported positives as a share of reported tests has been 18% over the past 6 days, as compared with 26% in the 9 days before that. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

This is clearly pretty good news, under the circumstances. The number of *tests* has fluctuated around a bit, but has mostly been increasing while the number of new *cases* has mostly been decreasing. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

This is new Italian cases and new Italian *tests* per day. Data from here. I did this quickly so apologies for any typos. https://t.co/3mA6RYQQON https://t.co/haxVFRd9xD — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@HeerJeet Sure, but I've also found myself glad we do have a federalist system given the less-than-ideal response from the feds. In theory, if there were a good federal response too, we could sort of get the best of both worlds (i.e. a good default response + smart local customization). — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@mattyglesias @HeerJeet To take the country that is most often regarded as a peer: I'm not sure the UK's handling of this has been better than ours. Time will tell. And the Netherlands' has probably been worse, though it's a small country. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

4. We’re a country with a federalist system and devolved decision-making authority. It’s likely that some parts of the US government (e.g. certain states/cities) are have handled this relatively well and some (e.g. the federal government) poorly. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

2. We’re a big country and you need to look at things on a per-capita basis. 3. We’re at a somewhat earlier stage of the epidemic than Europe, and there’s quite a bit of uncertainty about what things will look like a few weeks from now. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

1. There are *vast* differences in testing volume and reporting standards from county to country. The US has gone from very poor on testing to pretty good relative to other countries, and this will mean a higher nominal case count and make our slopes look steeper. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

We can roughly sort countries into places that have handled coronavirus well and handled it badly, and the US is pretty clearly in the badly camp. But statements such as “the US has handled this the worst of any major country” are not really so obvious from the evidence. Why? — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @donnellymjd: Check out my latest article about how to know whether NY's lockdown is working well enough to turn the tide against #COVID… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

It is neither the best-case scenario nor the worst-case scenario, according to outside experts, and reporters need to recognize that the White House is capable of expectations-framing / spin. https://t.co/oMWfVdQVVd — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

This is interesting reading from @BaldingsWorld world but one issue that if case detection improves over time, which it almost certainly does (i.e. because you ramp up testing), then empirically-derived estimates of R0 from the number of *detected* cases will be overestimated. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Of course, that's a national average. Maybe, as of 10 days ago, R0 was 2.1 in Florida, 0.9 in NYC and 0.7 in the SF Bay. The data seems consistent with that. But it's hard to anchor to anything when so many cases are undetected, so it could also be consistent with other theories. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

To be more precise, my priors are that as of a week or two ago (that's what we're seeing given the lag in the data) there would have been enough social distancing in place to slow but not reverse the spread. (Say, an R0 of ~1.1-1.6). The data seems consistent with that. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Because variation in testing makes it hard to know *exactly* what is happening, it's important to account for one's priors, and IMO those priors should be that there has been a gradual slowdown in new cases as more places have implemented social distancing. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Same story today. New cases have plateaued but so has testing. Newly detected cases Sun—20,827 Sat—18,821 Fri—18,678 Thu—16,807 New tests reported* Sun—95,647 Sat—109,071 Fri—107,295 Thu—97,806 Note: some states do not have reliable test data—CA especially has been weird. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I understand the concerns where outdoor spaces get very crowded. In other cases, though, I wonder how well interventions designed to stop/discourage people from outdoor exercise would do according to according to a cost-benefit analysis and my guess is not very well. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

re: coronavirus response, I think people probably ought to do a better job of distinguishing "Did a poor job of anticipating what would happen given uncertain evidence" vs. "Didn't act even when the evidence was clear". The latter is a lot more deserving of scorn. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The high CFR likely in part reflects a lack of testing as compared with other countries. Still, their death rate per capita is among the highest in the world. https://t.co/YknC2cecis — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The Netherlands flirted with using a herd immunity strategy and now their case fatality rate is 7%. https://t.co/5plSdXJbMK https://t.co/7R0xgUu7QL — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Nothing about the general election polling is very interesting right now since (unfortunately) we're still in the fairly early stages of the crisis. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The UK has only tested about 1/6 as many people as the US, so it may not entirely be a coincidence that their detected case count is only 1/6 as high. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Important to note that what's happened *so far* is largely baked in based on (bad) choices the U.S. made a week to a month ago, or longer. The data lags our actions to an extent that folks don't seem to fully appreciate. But making better choices *now* *will* pay dividends later. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

**HOWEVER**: We are not just inert objects here, and the choices we make could make a huge difference, as the experts think anywhere from around 36K to 1.1m deaths is highly plausible. That's 30-fold difference in possible outcomes. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

An expert survey conducted ~2 weeks ago forecasted 200K deaths in the U.S., although with a *very* wide range of possibilities. Revised slightly upward to 246K this week. But Dr. Fauci's estimate of 100K+ deaths is broadly in line with the consensus. https://t.co/oMWfVdQVVd — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@NAChristakis @qasim_bukhari FWIW, this is a really weird paper and I don't know that their analysis is robust enough to support a conclusion like "extremely unlikely". They seem surprised that there is *any* spread in warm-weather areas but they don't really address whether the spread is *slower*. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@joshtpm @BenjySarlin Yeah. Late February is fair game, and early March certainly is. (Especially the point at which they were saying to maybe avoid the subways.) — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

New detected cases in USA are slightly leveling off over the past 3 days: Sat: 18,821 Fri: 18,678 Thu: 16,797 But that's partly/largely because the number of tests is also leveling off: Sat: 109,071 Fri: 107,295 Thu: 97,806 https://t.co/6LHmD2T5ua — PolitiTweet.org