1/ I’ll reiterate what I said about this dataset a few weeks ago. You should take this data with a huge grain of salt (though not necessarily dismiss it ENTIRELY), because of one warning sign you can see below: radical discontinuities along state lines.
2/ Here’s how this data was constructed: they surveyed a whole lot of people about vaccine hesitancy, and then they used demographic characteristics of those people to extrapolate to the entire population. Relatively standard technique, but with some obvious pitfalls.
3/ Here are the variables HHS used in their model: "age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, marital status, health insurance status,
household income, state of residence, and interaction terms between race/ethnicity and having a college degree."
4/ You’ll notice that one of those factors is “state of residence.” That is, if residents of a particular state, such as Minnesota, were unusually likely to tell the original poll they wanted a vaccine, the model treated “being from MN” as a factor associated with pro-vax views.
5/ The idea that MN is more pro-vax overall than its neighbors is plausible. But the idea that rural counties in NW MN are drastically more pro-vax than their neighbors right across the Red River in ND? That should give you pause.
6/ Additionally, while this map is on the county level, the actually data is on the level of the “Public Use Microdata Area,” a little-known Census geography of around 100K people each; in rural areas it’s groups of counties, in urban areas it follows city/neighborhood lines.
7/ I said take this model with a grain of salt, not dismiss it entirely. So what CAN you use?

1. The data at the state level is almost certainly more reliable than on the sub-state level. Here’s a chart I made showing vaccine hesitancy rates (when it was done in March)
8/ Second, if you want to use data at the sub-state level — the principal appeal of this dataset! — then look at the data only within a single state, since state lines are a distorting variable here). And focus less on the absolute values of hesitancy than on relative levels.
9/ If you’re interested in my original analysis of this data from April 14, I wrote about it in my @MPRnews #COVID19 newsletter: view.connect.mpr.org/?qs=acb5804de0…
@MPRnews 10/10 And if you want more analysis like this of #COVID19 data, especially as it relates to Minnesota, subscribe to my newsletter here! cloud.connect.mpr.org/mprnews_covid

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More from @dhmontgomery

3 May
Today’s #COVID19 news in Minnesota is not great. The number of newly administered first doses is plummeting. I actually think the current levels are artificially low — we’ve been getting an average of 20K 1st doses per day — and due for a bounceback, but this isn’t good.
At the current pace, it’d take until late June to give 80% of Minnesotans their first vaccine.

A few weeks ago, we were chugging along at a mid-May pace.
J&J doses are starting to be given again, but only in relatively small numbers. Now Pfizer and Moderna doses are starting to decline, too.
Read 10 tweets
2 May
What precisely is the specific allegation in the sign, “Why won’t the gov[ernment] let black ppl make up more than 13% of the U.S. pop?”?

Activists regularly accuse the government of killing Black people. But this is a very specific demographic figure.
In the 1990 Census, 12.1% of Americans were Black. In 2000, it was 12.3%. In 2010, it was 12.6%.

We don’t have figures for the 2020 Census yet. The 2019 ACS one-year estimate was 12.8% Black.
To be clear, I’m genuinely curious as to the intent here. Is this a more poetic way of repeating the more common charge about Black deaths at the hand of the government? Is there a conspiracy theory about 13% as a threshold? It’s very specific and very demographic.
Read 4 tweets
26 Apr
Via @BitsyPerlman, here’s a fascinating redistricting idea I hadn’t encountered before, called “Primary Allocation.” Seats are allocated to parties proportionally via a statewide election. Then each party divides the state into districts for their reps… fordham.edu/download/downl…
@BitsyPerlman First, that’s fascinating to reverse the order of the primary and general elections — the “general” comes first to allocate seats, then the “primary” comes second to choose who fills them! Not sure if that’s better or not, but it’s counterintuitive and I like that.
@BitsyPerlman Second, it gets at two competing impulses in electoral system design: that results ought to be roughly proportional to the population, and that everyone should have “their” representatives.
Read 4 tweets
26 Apr
Minnesota will NOT LOSE A SEAT
Huge upset — Minnesota was expected to lose a seat because other states grew more quickly, but it looks like it just squeaked in!
Big winners here: @michellefischb and @PeteStauber.
Read 7 tweets
26 Apr
In about 15 minutes, we’ll find out whether Minnesota is going to lose one of its 8 congressional seats for the next decade. Many experts expect MN *will* lose a seat, but we’re on the cusp. Stay tuned, I’ll be tweeting out the news and writing it up later for @MPRnews.
@MPRnews Note that the fact that some states will lose seats as a result of the Census is not in the constitution. A law fixed the size of the House at 435 members. In the 19th Century, the House tended to get more members each decade, instead of reapportioning a fixed sum.
@MPRnews First we need to wade through preliminary remarks before everyone finds out the apportionment numbers…
Read 6 tweets
26 Apr
As of today, Minnesota’s average #COVID19 positivity rate is 4.97%.

That’s the first time it’s been under the 5% warning line since March 29. It comes after 11 straight days of improvement.
Minnesota’s now down to an average of just under 1,700 newly reported #COVID19 cases per day, compared to more than 2,100/day two weeks ago.

Active, confirmed cases are down to just over 15,000, from a peak over 20K.
Unless there’s a data error on @mnhealth’s website, today Minnesota reported 0 new #COVID19 deaths for the first time since March 22, and only the 2nd time since last April.
Read 10 tweets

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