Today @mnhealth is adding data on #COVID19 reinfections for the first time. These have been tracked, but not reported as new cases because each “case” was a person, not an infection.
The upshot: ~8,000 new “cases.”
The true number of actually new cases is 2,857, not 8,184.
@mnhealth These are people who had COVID more than once.
This is distinct from people who had COVID after getting vaccinated, which is a “breakthrough infection,” not a “reinfection.”
@mnhealth Even filtering out all these backdated reinfection cases, the news today isn’t great. Our positivity rate is back over 7%, everything still trending upwards.
@mnhealth We’re seeing upticks in cases by sample date, too. This is subject to a 7-day lag, so the uptick we’re seeing now is what was happening last week, now confirmed as real and not a reporting quirk.
@mnhealth These positive test results were all noted at the time, subject to contact tracing, etc. They just weren’t categorized as new “cases” on the MDH dashboard because it was the same individual getting sick a second time.
@mnhealth Today’s new backlogged cases largely come from the 2021 waves. Not too surprising, since people had to have gotten sick before to show up here.
@mnhealth Numbers of booster shots continue to soar. They’re not just “high compared to current vax rates” any more.
@mnhealth In most of the Twin Cities metro area, 80% or more of eligible people have at least one shot:
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Alright, let’s try this again, but with correct math.
I’d say Frey might be in trouble if the share of voters ranking in 2nd & 3rd was circa 1-3%. As it is, he’s got a whole lot of votes that will likely come his way as RCV is calculated and candidates eliminated tomorrow.
Frey’s got a whole lot of paths to get to 50%+1 as RCV is calculated. Is it mathematically guaranteed with what we know now? No. There are ways that both Nezhad & Knuth could theoretically win. But I think they’re unlikely.
As I think about it more closely, these old charts weren’t *wrong*. What they were showing is % of *total ballots cast*. My new charts are showing percent of ballots *in each round*. Exhausted ballots change the denominators!
One thing that is certain to be true: the dominant choice of Minneapolis voters today is going to be “did not vote,” not any of the candidates/choices on the ballot. Since the 70s, Minneapolis has never had a municipal race where more than 50% of registered voters turned out.
And even if we do set a modern record and top 50% turnout, more registered voters will have stayed home than will vote for any of the candidates/choices.
Here’s a turnout history for Minneapolis mayoral elections. Note that 1985, 1989, 2005 and 2009 featured incumbent mayors winning reelection en route to long tenures. (Winning handily, in @R_T_Rybak’s cases; I can’t find stats on Donald Fraser’s 1980s wins to say for sure.)
Here’s what I’m looking for when results start coming in tonight, for the RCV mayor’s race. Let me know why I’m dead wrong!
1) Can Frey top 50% in round 1? If he does, it’s over. 2) Is Frey below 40%? If so, really tough path for him. 3) In between, things get interesting…
The general dynamic of the race is Frey vs. the field. Most voters either support the mayor, or oppose him. RCV means anti-Frey voters can scatter their first-choice votes and still come home.
Anti-Frey activists are pushing the “Don’t rank Frey” campaign to minimize the number of voters Frey picks up in later rounds. But plenty of voters probably WILL rank Frey 2nd or 3rd! Not a lot, but certainly not nothing. If Frey’s at 47%+ in the first round, I think he wins easy
I’ll start today’s #COVID19 update with the good news: look at booster shots go!
There’s also an increase in first doses among 12- to 15-year-olds, but it’s pretty small compared to past rates they’ve shown. (About 59% of this group has at least 1 dose.)
So, that’s the good news.
The bad news is everything else. Our latest surge continues, with cases and positivity rates both continuing to rise:
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.”
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!
And all the people saying it’s bad taste because they’re doing this instead of passing the BBB bill are just buying into that hoary old “Politician Can’t Multitask” trope.
You see it constantly from all sides. “Why are they wasting time passing Bill X when they really need to pass Bill Y?” Except Bill X is almost never actually impeding the passage of Bill Y, it’s completely extraneous to people actual concern about Bill Y.