2. The Imperial College study in March envisioned on-and-off waves of COVID until a vaccine, if social distancing measures were implemented then relaxed then re-implemented, etc. (which is basically what has happened).
3. Prominent epidemiologists like Marc Lipsitch predicted in February that 40-70% of the world's population would be infected with COVID-19 over the next year. theatlantic.com/health/archive…
So if forecasts were pretty good in March, what changed?
Part of it is was just this was very new in March. People weren't thinking so far ahead. Fall seemed a LONG time away. You could read these predictions, agree with them intellectually, but they didn't register emotionally.
But also, we wound up in a middle ground where given the sort of interventions that society is willing to undertake, R seems to hover around 1. Achieving true suppression (R << 1) is too hard, apparently*. But it's not that hard to prevent R >> 1 with moderate interventions**.
** If it had been impossible to keep R from falling to <1, COVID would run its course until herd immunity. Indeed this is what some March predictions assumed. This would have been VERY bad. But it does mean it might have been "over" at some point, depending on length of immunity.
* People hate when this is brought up, but part of the problem with suppression via lockdowns is that unless you either achieve eradication (~impossible) or use the time under lockdowns to improve technology (e.g. testing) cases start rising again once you relax the measures.
I'm not sure elite discourse around lockdowns in March was especially honest with itself about this, especially the likelihood of achieving technological improvements (such as fast-turnaround testing) on a short time frame in countries with poor governance (including the US).
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It's definitely one of the more fortuitous accidents of timing I've had as a writer. On Tuesday, I wrote a piece saying Democrats use "But Her Emails" to deflect legitimate criticism. And that's exactly what they've done since the special council report on Thursday...
Biden's age is not at all comparable to Hillary's emails. It is a much more important issue. He wants to be president until he is 86 years old! Voters ratioanally think it's important. I criticized #ButHerEmails early and often. This story is not the same. natesilver.net/p/not-everythi…
Although there was a fresh round this week, people have been using this ButHerEmails excuse to deflect legitimate reporting on Biden's age for months. It hasn't worked. Voters have more concerns than ever. Now he's trailing Trump *even as economic perceptions improve*. Not good.
I'M SORRY BUT YOU DID A MISINFORMATION SANDER! YOU'RE ONE OF THE BADDIES! You've routinely spread misinformation about the scientific consensus on COVID origins. The fact that you can't acknowledge this why the concept is incoherent.
Half the reason the Team Misinformation people bug me is because it's just so obvious what they're doing, taking genuinely contentious discussions and stigmatizing the positions that don't match their politics with the thinnest imaginable reeds of expert authority.
A lot of it, like denial of the *possibility* of a lab leak, is quite close to propaganda as commonly defined. It's trying to advance an agenda, it presents facts in a manipulative way, and it seeks to trigger an emotional response (by saying e.g. the lab leak is xenophobic).
🧵1/ Our biennial forecast self-review is out! There’s lots of detail in the story, please check it out. We think it’s really important to do this. It’s also one of those years where it may clear up some misconceptions. fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-o…
2/ Polls (in the aggregate) and forecasts had a good year. Polling averages did ~not~ predict a red wave. They showed a highly competitive race for the Senate and below-average (by historical standards) GOP gains in the House, though with much uncertainty.
3/ Democrats did slightly better than expected based on polls/forecasts, but really only slightly, much less than the degree to which the GOP overperformed polls in 2016 & 2020. It was a somewhat surprising year relative to historical norms, but not relative to polls.
This is cool. GOP currently leads 220-215 based on called races + races where they're currently ahead. But, quite a few are uncertain; some key ones below.
Republicans have a 59% chance of winning the Senate, according to our final Deluxe forecast. It's closer in our alternative models: R chances are 51% in the Lite (polls-only) forecast, and also 51% in Classic (polls + fundamentals but no expert ratings). projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-election-…
In the House, Republicans are considerably more definitive favorites: 84% in Deluxe, 82% in Classic and 75% in Lite. Still, you shouldn't round their chances up to 100%. It wouldn't require **that** large of a polling/forecaster error for the House to be competitive.
Some qualifications on this, and more in some races than others, but our Deluxe model expects Republicans to outperform their current polling by ~2 points or so in the average Congressional race.
Here is the comparison in the Senate, for instance.
There's not any one simple reason for the gap, it's a few different things that add up. Also not mentioned in the story: Dems will likely perform worse in the *House popular vote* than on the generic ballot because there are a bunch of districts where there's no D on the ballot.