Today is a Tuesday, which means @mnhealth is reporting 3 days of data today. So don’t freak out over the 1,032 new cases reported today.
Cases ARE rising, which is bad, but more modestly. Over the past week we’re averaging 350 cases per day, up from 220 cases per day last Tues.
@mnhealth MN’s positivity rate is up to 2.87% — until quite recently, record-low territory — from 2.0% a week ago.
@mnhealth#COVID19 hospital admissions are up, but only modestly so far.
@mnhealth Here’s how this current #COVID19 wave compares to past waves. The next few days could be key in showing whether we’re about to shift into another gear or not.
@mnhealth Here’s the big picture: while cases are up over the past month in MN, we’re not even in the same ballpark as the states being ravaged by delta right now.
YET?
@mnhealth You can see the current #COVID19 case growth is focused in the South & California.
You might be tempted to say it’s seasonal, but it’s not exactly been chilly in the Midwest lately…
Whenever any area seems to be escaping COVID, always wait a few weeks before claiming victory.
@mnhealth Cases are rising most strongly in the Twin Cities metro and east-central Minnesota, especially when you adjust for vaccination rates.
@mnhealth Welp, gotta go recalibrate the truncation on this graph…
@mnhealth Confirmed cases are up in all age groups, but especially among working-age adults.
Cases are NOT surging among children too young to be vaccinated (at least, not *confirmed* cases).
@mnhealth Vaccination rates are starting to inch back up, likely as fears of the new wave spur the hesitant to go get jabbed.
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If Walz resigns as governor to become vice president, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan will become governor.
It's what happens next that gets INTERESTING. The President of the MN Senate (currently Minneapolis Democrat Bobby Joe Champion) becomes Lt. Gov....
The Minnesota Senate is currently split 33-33 between Democrats and Republicans, with one vacancy on the ballot this fall that's probably Lean D. If Champion resigns, that could lead to either a temporary Republican majority, or extended 33-33 tie, until Champion's replaced.
But it turns out that it's a murky, unsettled legal question whether Champion will HAVE to resign. Minnesota went through this issue a few years ago, when Tina Smith resigned as LG to accept a U.S. Senate appointment, and Republican Michelle Fischbach became LG.
“No principles, any methods, but no flowery language — always Yes or No, though you could only count on him if it was No.” — Clement Attlee on Stalin
“Soviet biologists were instructed to adopt the theories of the charlatan Lysenko… to disastrous effect… It is significant that Stalin left his nuclear physicists alone & never presumed to second guess *their* calculations. Stalin may well have been mad, but he was not stupid.”
“Fortunately for the West, American popular culture had an appeal that American political ineptitude could do little to tarnish.”
I finally hit on why "Hazbin Hotel" is leaving me so cold. I love a stylized sitcom about depraved souls in the afterlife struggling toward redemption: It's called "The Good Place," & while it lacked raunch, songs & art deco animation, it had sophisticated multi-layered writing.
Partly this is a difference in execution — if you hired Michael Schur to script-doctor the dialogue on "Hazbin Hotel" you'd get a much better show — but in large part it's just intent. TGP was aiming at the border between middle- and high-brow; HH is aiming at middle-low.
I see everything "Hazbin Hotel" is trying to do, and can appreciate it in an abstract sense. It's not a terrible show, it's just, like, a C+. It's competently done and has a few interesting ideas, but (4-5 episodes in) doesn't display any real verve or finesse in its writing.
You BET we polled people about #Napoleon. On the eve of a new biopic, most Americans don't know very much about Bonaparte, and what they do know, they don't especially like.
The U.S. actually has the highest rates of considering Napoleon's legacy to be "negative" of any of 8 countries YouGov polled. That includes several other countries that Napoleon actually invaded, humiliated and occupied.
What DO Americans know — or think they know — about Napoleon? Well, I regret to inform you that one of the most popular descriptors was "short," with no real difference between people who said they knew a fair bit about Napoleon and those who didn't.
cc @WaltHickey @pbump @PatrickRuffini @goodreads @DanielBGreene @aedwardslevy @NateSilver538
How many books do people own, anyway? My @YouGovAmerica survey found most people own at least SOME physical books, but most of these collections are pretty small. 20% of Americans own between 1 & 10 books.
NEW: Full-time caregiving is the #1 reason prime-age Americans don't work. In my latest for the @MinneapolisFed, I break down the stats behind this key demographic group:
Among adults age 25-54, women are 90% of full-time caregivers. But that's down from 96% two decades ago, while the share of full-time caregivers who are men has doubled.
Social conventions, health and individual preferences all impact parents' choices when one of them is going to stay home. But sometimes finances drive the decision, and in opposite-sex prime-age couples, men are twice as likely to be the top earner: