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Maggie Koerth Profile picture
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12 Jan, 5 tweets, 2 min read
In the gap left by the CDC, Americans are turning to Twitter, blogs, and word of mouth for their COVID risk reduction advice. The result is a black market of information that makes it even harder to make the right choice. fivethirtyeight.com/features/back-…
It is not sustainable -- emotionally, factually, equitably -- to expect us to cobble together our COVID safety decisions from things we read on this hell site, things other people told us they read on this hell site, and our friend's cousin's family practice doctor.
Hell, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say I (and journalists like me) should not even be the primary purveyors of COVID decision-making knowledge. You should not need to "know a guy" (or know which guy to trust) to know what to do.
fivethirtyeight.com/features/back-…
I am infuriated that this is where we've been left -- to grope around on the Internet, to hope you find the story with the most up-to-date facts, to not know what to do when my COVID fact guy and your COVID fact guy disagree fivethirtyeight.com/features/back-…
And then we're supposed to do all that and not be burnt out? (Not to mention the ways that the information back alley contributes to misinformation being spread). This is stupid. I'm angry. And my editors were kind enough to let me yell about it. fivethirtyeight.com/features/back-…

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More from @maggiekb1

Maggie Koerth Profile picture
11 Jan
A thing I stumbled upon while reading this thread that I did not know: The state that led the nation in eugenic sterilization was … California
Much like the way we have decided to tell stories about slavery and Jim Crow has conveniently erased the participation and culpability of northern states in those systems, we tell eugenics stories as though they’re things that dumb/evil good ol boys in the South did…
But eugenics was a “progressive” and “scientific” practice. Putting it in a “oh only backwards or evil people would believe that” makes it easier to look away. pbs.org/independentlen…
Read 4 tweets
Maggie Koerth Profile picture
8 Sep 21
The US has had a system of strict vaccine requirements for school attendance for 40+ years. Thanks to that program, we know vaccine mandates work. But we also know that getting them implemented isn't simple. Be prepared for loopholes and mess.

fivethirtyeight.com/features/vacci…
School entrance mandates are the single most effective thing we’ve done to achieve high vaccination rates in the US, said James Colgrove, a professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University. “Can you achieve it through voluntary means? No. Not really,” he told me.
But you also can't "set and forget" a vaccine mandate. Making them work takes enforcement, which is expensive and conflicts with other public good goals, like making sure all kids have access to public education.

fivethirtyeight.com/features/vacci…
Read 4 tweets
Maggie Koerth Profile picture
17 Aug 21
Realizing this was a staged press shot and all, it is still highly representative of the early-to-mid 20th century aesthetic of "Casual clothes do not exist" which blows my mind to this day.
I grew up on the very tail end of this concept: Separate clothes for school and play were part of the hangover, because you still sent kids to school dressed up as though they weren't going to just get filthy there.
Thank god Western culture went slovenly because I really don't know how I would have managed a life where I needed to devote a chunk of my executive functioning to me and my family looking smart and put together at literally all times.
Read 5 tweets
Maggie Koerth Profile picture
24 Jun 21
Look, we can have debates about the best detailed policy response to rampant racism and unchecked violence in policing. We can have debates about how best to reduce crime.

But as someone who currently lives in Minneapolis, what @tomfriedman is saying here is a lie.
Tuesday night I rode a dumb yuppie electric bike from one of the statistically most high crime neighborhoods in the city to another. It was a great evening. If this is what dystopian ghost town hellscapes look like I'll take it.
The parks are full of people, like usual. The roads are full of cyclists (much to the consternation of my more-car-oriented loved ones). My oldest kid is learning to walk to the fish and chicken place on the corner and pay for a bottle of Faygo on her own.
Read 6 tweets
Maggie Koerth Profile picture
16 Mar 21
Here’s my hot take: this isn’t about the blood clots. But it’s also not bonkers. It’s about the bigger picture on AstraZeneca and a sense of “bad news” that’s formed around it ...
AstraZeneca, if you don't recall, has ... had some shit happening. It's clinical trials were paused for safety concerns last fall nytimes.com/2020/09/19/hea…
Which maybe wouldn't be a big red flag to me except that then it turned out they'd been administering doses wrong and tracking and disclosing their data poorly. nytimes.com/2020/11/25/bus…
Read 9 tweets
Maggie Koerth Profile picture
15 Mar 21
I don't know if this is a Hot Take or something other Northside residents would nod along with, but my fantasy Blue Line extension would go up 7th Ave and Emerson to Broadway. Why?
1) Traffic calming. 7th Ave and Emerson are both speeding shitshows. And maybe a big ass train lumbering along could, like, convince the dudes going 70 in the bike lane that they will lose this fight.
2) Schools. But if you took the train up 7th and Emerson you would provide good access to two magnet elementary schools, a high school, and a jr. high. The alignment up Lyndale is decent for this (though Bethune is more left out) and is my favorite of the existing plans.
Read 7 tweets

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