David H. Montgomery Profile picture
Oct 29, 2021 9 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Minnesota has closed out an all-around bad week of #COVID19 on a sour note. From Monday through today, our positivity rate rose by 0.7 percentage points, almost erasing last week’s 0.9-point fall. Cases also on the rise.
One week ago, people gave me a bunch of crap for qualifying that week’s decline by saying “the only question is how long it will last.”

I wish I hadn’t been proven right so quickly…
Now, this week’s uptick does not mean cases will continue to RISE indefinitely. It’s entirely possible we’ll get right back to declines next week. The point is, we don’t know the future!
This uptick in cases/positivity is not just an artifact of reporting times. If you look at cases by sample date, you can see this past Monday *already* has more positive cases than last Monday, despite data still trickling in. Monday cases had fallen for two consecutive weeks.
Hospitalizations are mostly flat-ish.
Cases are up everywhere, but especially in western and central Minnesota.
We are seeing a real, significant surge in booster shots, however.
Vax rates will probably rise next week as kids 5-11 become eligible for the shot.

This is a group of about 500K people, representing about 1/4 of Minnesota’s unvaccinated population.
How big a difference will eligible 5-11-year-olds make? Right now 65% of all Minnesotans have 1+ shot.

When 12-15-year-olds became eligible, we saw about 1/3 of that group get the shot within the first month. If that holds for 5-11s, that'd be another 3% of MN’s population.

• • •

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

Keep Current with David H. Montgomery

David H. Montgomery 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 @dhmontgomery

Sep 6
An interesting piece, but this line is unfair: "Podcasts are not reviving history... They are mostly drowning it in a tidal wave of blather..."

There are awful history podcasts — and also great ones, with excellent research. (This statement also happens to be true of books.)
No one would think to condemn the genre of historical nonfiction just because there's a bunch of badly researched polemics on the shelf at Target or Barnes & Noble. The same is true for history podcasts — the problem isn't the medium, which has been used to good & ill effect.
"Ah, but some of the most popular history podcasts are of the worst historical quality," one might say. But so it has always been, in all mediums.
Read 4 tweets
Sep 5
I've been revisiting "The Last Dance" as late-night viewing the past week, and am continually impressed by the quality of its writing as narrative nonfiction.

One key thing that struck me last night: how the documentary handles the BAD parts of Michael Jordan's story.
"The Last Dance" is overall extremely pro-Jordan — unsurprisingly since he was involved in its production. It's been criticized for how it slighted some of the NBA players Jordan came into conflict with.

But — and this is key — it's not purely hagiographic.
"The Last Dance" spawned a bunch of imitation documentaries as other athletes and celebrities tried to capture that magic for themselves. I've seen a few, and they're often not good — in part because they're TRYING to avoid controversy. TLD's director Jason Hehir knew better.
Read 5 tweets
Aug 6
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.
Read 7 tweets
May 18
“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.”
Read 51 tweets
Feb 15
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.
Read 4 tweets
Nov 21, 2023
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.

My story for @YouGovAmerica, with lots of charts: today.yougov.com/society/articl…

Image
Image
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.

today.yougov.com/society/articl…
Image
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.

today.yougov.com/society/articl…
Image
Read 5 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

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

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

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(