Share this page!

Nate Silver Profile picture
Twitter logo
24 Mar, 8 tweets, 3 min read
NYC's COVID data has been screwed up lately so here's what the state's data shows for NYC:

Cases (7-day average)
Current: 3921
1 week ago: 3854
2 weeks ago: 3797
3 weeks ago: 3999

Positive test rate (7-day avg)
Current: 4.3%
1 week ago: 4.3%
2 weeks ago: 3.9%
3 weeks ago: 4.2%
On the one hand, I'm pretty sure that sites showing a decline in NYC (the NYT shows this, for example) are wrong. They're filling in missing city data with state data for the city. But that state data isn't apples-to-apples; it doesn't include probably cases, for instance.
On the other hand, I'm seeing a lot of loose talk about a "spike" in NYC when, no, that isn't really justified either. For better or worse, the numbers have settled into a plateau, which is also the case throughout the Northeast. beta.healthdata.gov/Health/COVID-1…
NYC/NYS have reasonably high per-capita rates of COVID cases, but you need to adjust for testing volumes when comparing across states. Per capita, NYS is doing ~2.5 more tests per capita than the US overall, so we're capturing more of our infections than most states do.
Boroughwise, here is the current 7-day average case counts as compared to 3 weeks ago:

Borough: Now / 3 weeks ago
Queens: 1180 / 1093
Brooklyn: 1184 / 1228
Bronx: 645 / 794
Manhattan: 612 / 629
S.I.: 301 / 255
Source material here.

health.data.ny.gov/Health/New-Yor…
Update: NYC finally updated its COVID data and it agrees with the state, more or less. Clear signs of a plateau in cases and the positive test %.

Hospitalizations still declining (though ignore the grey part of the chart, which has incomplete reporting). www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid…
Bonus tweet: Nice plunge in positive test rates for people aged 75+ in NYC, who were the first to be vaccinated.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Nate Silver

Nate Silver Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @NateSilver538

Nate Silver Profile picture
25 Mar
Our new pollster ratings are up!

They've been updated to reflect the results of the 2020 general election + the GA runoffs.

Also a shiny new interactive. Fivey Fox makes a cameo appearance.

Here's the link. I'll discuss some key findings in this 🧵.

projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratin… Image
Note that we now have pages for individual pollsters. So you can see exactly which polls made it into the rating for each polling firm. Basically this means every poll within 3 weeks of an election since 1998!

projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratin… Image
Or if you want to go even deeper, you can find the entire database on GitHub. We strongly encourage people to use this database for academic research, etc. A LOT of hours of gone into building and maintaining it.

github.com/fivethirtyeigh…
Read 16 tweets
Nate Silver Profile picture
1 Mar
I, too, wish states kept restrictions in place for another few weeks until we're more caught up on vaccinations etc. But I think it's worth thinking about why states (recently including lots of blue states/cities) are opening up despite the CDC and others encouraging them not to.
Two obvious points. First, governors don't think of public health officials as having balanced all equities and considered all costs/benefits. They think of them as one side of "the argument", advocating for a position, with business owners, "citizens", etc. on the other side.
Second, they probably think of public health officials as *always* wanting to keep *everything* closed without clear timelines. Now, the rationale is about new variants. I (Nate) think that + timing of vaccines is a good rationale! But governors may see this as moving goalposts.
Read 4 tweets
Nate Silver Profile picture
8 Feb
Don't think there's been any point in the pandemic at which there's been such a confusing mix of good *and* bad COVID news. I actually think the good > bad, but there's plenty of both, and it's worth thinking about how people react to the uncertainty and confusion that creates.
I guess what I'm getting at is that uncertainty demands nuance, but ironically, people aren't looking for nuance at times of greater uncertainty! They're tired of the uncertainty and want simplicity and even dogmatism.
One obvious example is you've seen an uptick in people scolding images depicting both behaviors that are quite dangerous (that supermarket in Florida where no one's wearing a mask!😬) and others showing e.g. relatively safe outdoor activities. We've lost some of the nuance there.
Read 4 tweets
Nate Silver Profile picture
5 Jan
There's this lazy critique that "the mainstream media isn't taking the 'coup' seriously". Really? Have you actually read the articles that e.g. the NYT and WaPo are writing? This is the first article I found on NYT.com today. nytimes.com/2021/01/04/us/…
I criticized the NYT and other outlets a ton from mid-2015 through mid-2017 for how they covered Trump, including this sort of "news analysis" piece that was prone toward tired tropes and false equivalencies. These stories have changed a LOT since then, in my view for the better.
And, yes, sometimes you have to analyze the political incentives of the relevant actors, which may seem banal. And sometimes you have to assess the likelihood of success (exceedingly low). That is part of the story, and moreover, part of taking the story *seriously*.
Read 4 tweets
Nate Silver Profile picture
1 Jan
While this might sound like posturing by de Blasio, New York indeed has a fairly complicated set of categories and subcategories for who is in which tier and it's plausible to think that's slowing things down.

nytimes.com/2021/01/01/nyr…

And you know what'll probably be worse? Having hard-to-define categories like essential workers or pre-existing conditions. There are lots of borderline cases (and some people who will try to cheat the system). Who's going to verify who qualifies? Big administrative burden.
Rigorous verification will take time and slow things down. Lax verification will make things a free-for-all. I don't think these plans are well thought out. If you're going to have subcategories, make them narrow, specific and easy to verify (e.g. "public school teachers").
Read 4 tweets
Nate Silver Profile picture
18 Dec 20
At least with essential workers—if you can define the scope narrowly—there's an argument to be had about reaching herd immunity sooner. What will literally kill people is treating a broad set of preexisting conditions as being as important as age.
If you look at the research, virtually all of people at highest risk of dying from COVID are aged 70+. There are almost no preexisting conditions that matter remotely as much as age.

nature.com/articles/s4159…
But ACIP defines *more than 100m people* as having "high-risk medical conditions" that put them in the same priority tier as people age 65+ for vaccination. This is NOT following the science. States that want to save lives must give age higher priority. cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/…
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @NateSilver538 has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @NateSilver538!

Read all threads by @NateSilver538