Nate Silver

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@mattyglesias I think it likely has a bias toward upper-middlebrow restaurants (at least here in NY, the very exclusive/ buzzy restaurants tend to be on other platforms and the mom-and-pop ones may not take reservations online at all). Not sure what downstream effects that has, though. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@ModeledBehavior I think the NY numbers are likely heavily affected by a decline in business dining. Anecdotally, restaurants in residential neighborhoods have generally been quite active and busy. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@DouthatNYT Yeah I should have qualified by saying I've mostly been in smaller towns. Not sure what Boston is like. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@joshtpm Yeah, the West Coast seems to be more risk-averse than the Northeast, which I'm not sure I would have expected going in. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I've spent some time in New England recently and there was more of a sense there of being on the "other side of the pandemic" with people having less anxiety about COVID. So maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel if you have *very* high vax rates, as New England does. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

And here are states where dining is up the most. A bit of a mixed bag. Mostly purple/red states that have had quite a few problems with Delta, but also New England. https://t.co/9tDjZlSwc9 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Here are the states where restaurant reservations are down the most since Aug. 1 as compared with 2019, per OpenTable. In general, would support the idea that there's more pullback from economic activity in well-vaccinated blue states. Louisiana a big outlier due to hurricane. https://t.co/M3nDdwreWL — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

There's this debate about whether conservatives who refuse the vaccine are misinformed about the facts or are making some sort of political statement. The thing is, people's views of "the facts" are highly shaped by their politics so that may not be a meaningful distinction. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

This seems right. People have a lot of hot takes about the political impact. But if this policy succeeds in reducing COVID—which depends in large part on whether courts uphold it—that's probably the most important thing from a political as well as a public health point of view. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Keep in touch with your (non-journo) college friends because you don't want all your friends to be people in the industry or people in the industries you cover. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@ASDem Parents are also a bit less likely to be vaccinated FWIW. Lots of confounders, of course. But I think online liberals are making the same mistake as when they thought Warren would win the primary; their social circles are not at all representative of the broader population. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@ASDem There is data on it and your supposition isn't right. Parents are actually *less* concerned about being around unvaccinated people than adults overall (though some confounders there). Also a fairly large majority of adults do *not* live with kids<12. https://t.co/W83tBV7A2F — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

People on this platform routinely misrepresent my views on COVID policy so just for the record here are my views, which are pretty nuanced and about as middle-of-the-road as it gets. https://t.co/bmcuGT69lO — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@kwcollins @ProfEmilyOster This study suggests that the average attack rate for *symptomatic* influenza in kids is around 10%, but suggests that it's probably twice that if you count asymptomatic cases. Varies quite a bit from year to year. https://t.co/xugOoIik9P — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@kwcollins https://t.co/D3mOwIjpD0 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@ClaraJeffery @clarabellum @mattyglesias Some public health messaging is discouraging vaccinated people from a wide range of social behavior that is very important to many people. Some people can substitute safer behaviors and some cannot. But it's not just a few things around the margin. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@ClaraJeffery @clarabellum @mattyglesias That's not a 1-way street. I think there are probably also negative externalities from people avoiding in-person social contact. Damage to communities, friendships, families, the economy. And reducing educational attainment likely has long-term negative externalities to society. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@ClaraJeffery I'm also not trying to be proscriptive. (Of course I have thoughts on what I'd do if I had kids, but I don't so I don't think those are interesting). But I do think there are gaps between liberal Twitter's perceptions of how parents are behaving and their actual preferences. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@ClaraJeffery I think a random survey K-12 parents is a considerably better representation of K-6 parents than your or my anecdotal evidence. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@ClaraJeffery I am not shaming people for anything. I am saying, empirically, that parents are not necessarily being that cautious, and that neither my nor your peer groups are good representations of the population overall. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@ClaraJeffery Yeah I know a lot of people with kids and their behavior re: COVID isn't that different from the ones who do have kids. This is also true for the population overall: https://t.co/W83tBV7A2F — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Not going to restaurants, movies, religious services, weddings, the gym, etc., is not a low burden to most Americans. Many people's social and recreational lives revolve around these things. If you tell them to avoid these things, they'll assume breakthroughs are very concerning. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@ZoeMcLaren Depression, substance use, lower social skills, fewer friendships, fewer romantic relationships, fewer business relationships, retreat to domestic vs. communal life, damage to cultural institutions that rely on in-person patronage, greater tolerance for authorianism. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@JSEllenberg I agree, but I think the messaging probably needs to anchor to a baseline and then deviate from it, e.g. "Your vaccinated: congratulations! For the most part, you can return to normal activities. But here are a few precautions you might consider depending on your risk tolerance." — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@ZoeMcLaren @notdred I'm not sure it's so straightforward. Because risk of severe COVID outcomes is so age-driven, the risk of severe outcomes to *vaccinated* adults in your household (especially older adults) may still be higher than to unvaccinated kids. https://t.co/uA30v3WKvW — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@ZoeMcLaren I think there are a lot of potential black swan effects from social isolation. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@ZoeMcLaren @notdred I have plenty of friends with kids, and their attitudes aren't too different in the aggregate than my friends without kids. That's also true of the general population. Having kids doesn't predict greater COVID caution: https://t.co/W83tBV7A2F — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Also, although there are some confounders here, in surveys, K-12 parents are actually less worried about being around unvaccinated people than other adults. COVID concern is extremely highly correlated with partisanship, OTOH. https://t.co/W83tBV7A2F https://t.co/PMg527ZEKj — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

BTW, part of the poor media messaging—see below—is in exaggerating how easily vaccinated people transmit. They're both much less likely to get COVID *and* less likely to transmit if they do. Being vaccinated offers unvaccinated household members (e.g. kids) a LOT of protection. https://t.co/SROuwRmxkD — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

If two-thirds of vaccinated infectious disease experts won't eat indoors at a restaurant, and almost half won't attend an *outdoor* sporting event, then of course people reading that are going to think breakthroughs are a big deal and of course they'll want boosters. https://t.co/iAn2WmxWiB — PolitiTweet.org