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Askeladden Capital Profile picture
Askeladden Capital
@AskeladdenTX
Long-only small/micro value. Remote/ flexible work advocate. "You know Denton County will be right here waiting for youuuu."
Nov 2, 2020 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
For anyone feeling hopeless, here's your daily dose of COVID good news: one way or another, COVID mortality and hospitalizations should drop fairly substantially in Q1 2020.

Why? 1/ 2/ We have multiple shots on goal that make this more likely than not. I suspect that some paths will be quite controversial to some subset of people, but together they paint an optimistic scenario.
Sep 25, 2020 • 30 tweets • 6 min read
Hi COVID Twitter - I’m back(ish).

How likely is a second wave? How big would it be?

Let’s talk about seasonality and herd immunity so that you can better interpret models and commentary.

Explainer THREAD on epidemic math. (Don’t worry, you don’t need a TI-89.) 1/ Image 2/ Let’s define some terms.

R0 = new infections per each infection, under normal contact conditions, with 100% susceptible population

Re (or) Rt = new infections per 1 infection, under current conditions
Sep 19, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Team Reality is about being on the side of truth, so it's important (to me) to share this regarding Nashville.

It's not clear exactly what happened. It is clear, however, that they weren't tripping over themselves to share data suggesting bars *were safe* or lift restrictions. I think one of the reasons this went viral at the mere *hint* of impropriety is that citizens are constantly told by public health that everything is terrible and risky, even when it's not - and that's hurting kids, business owners, and society at large.
Sep 18, 2020 • 23 tweets • 7 min read
U.S. COVID policy has likely killed up to ~2x as many vulnerables by following feelings and intuition rather than science.

Not all-cause deaths - just *COVID deaths.*

Math suggests a different, better approach.

THREAD 1/ 2/ What feels good doesn’t always do good - the law of unintended consequences.

For example, reducing COVID transmission "feels" smart, but some researchers recently found moderate social distancing might *increase* total COVID deaths.

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs…
Sep 11, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
If you're a doctor, and you - casually! offhand! - throw out the idea of isolating kids for "a year or two," from a virus that poses them lower risk than flu, you should be stripped of your medical license.

Forget immune systems - catastrophic consequences on development. @DrKristenW - care to offer a pediatrician's perspective on the continuing insanity?
Sep 9, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
WaPo, which harped on Trump's "bleach" comment for months, just unironically ran a piece about putting alcohol up your nose and antiseptic in your eyes.

That's it. That's the tweet. Image @kerpen
Sep 7, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
As a follow-up to this, what @WesPegden keeps harping on - rightly! - is that nobody is being *quantitative* about these things when it comes to COVID - they're just being moralistic. For example, we could do the math as follows... 1/ 2/ What is the probability that a safe/effective vaccine will be available by X date?

What is the prob we could reduce N infections prior to X using strategy Y?

What is the likely mortality/morbidity benefit of reducing N infections?

What are the tradeoffs? <-- continued
Sep 7, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
very interesting data, albeit the researchers misdefine herd immunity - they reached 40% seroprevalence by late July - early Aug, i.e. pretty close to total infections. Assuming (roughly) total infx of ~2x HIT, similar to U.S. Sunbelt, would put HIT at 20%... will work through this tomorrow
Sep 6, 2020 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
This is really interesting - not sure how much lag there is in the data, but Dallas *new* COVID hospitalization admissions appear to be back to, or lower tham lockdown levels.

Dallas County CLI also down to *literally* the lowest level of 2020.

dallascounty.org/Assets/uploads… ImageImage @vlal @FiveKGreg @chris_kratovil @NahasNewman @iKick247 @JTUGS @ElleMandell @therealarod1984
Sep 2, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
*This* is the human toll of COVID school closures.

Alex Rodriguez grew up a self-described "dirt-poor" Hispanic kid.

For him/his friends, schools and academic competitions were his ticket to a better life.

Please read Alex's story, and share it with parents and school boards. @kerpen @venivici27 @bhunstable please consider sharing/retweeting Alex's story.
Sep 1, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Why are many of the same people screaming about systemic racism demanding school closures - one of the most systemically racist policies we could possibly implement?

Data demonstrates *significant* impacts on underprivileged minority students.

mckinsey.com/industries/pub… "Black students may fall behind by 10 months, Hispanic by 9 mths, and low-income students by >1 year... this would exacerbate existing achievement gaps by 15 to 20 percent... an additional 2 to 9% of high-school students could drop out as a result of COVID and school closures."
Aug 26, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Another note on COVID priors: people are *really bad* at thinking through corollaries.

We've all heard the story of one person infecting 50 at a funeral/meeting/choir practice, etc.

But if R0 is ~2.5 (hypothetically), this also necessarily means 19 people infected *0* others... For those who want to see the math:

"R0 tells you the average number of people who will contract a contagious disease from one person with that disease"

So if R0 is 2.5, and 1 superspreader infects 50 people

Then 50/2.5 = 20 and 19 people didn't spread, for math to work...
Aug 26, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This is a common criticism of the Gomes model that is worth addressing.

Gomes isn't mechanistic; i.e. she's not bottom-up accounting for every factor (pre-existing immunity, etc) that might contribute.

She's just inferring parameters based on real data... 1/ 2/ not dissimilar from @youyanggu, who (like her) has been the most accurate.

All models are wrong, some models are useful. The Ferguson/Osterholm/Hotez models are too wrong to be useful.

Undoubtedly, Gu/Gomes models also have flaws - but have predicted real world VERY well
Aug 25, 2020 • 46 tweets • 14 min read
2 weeks ago, Twitter predicted today’s TX COVID hospitalizations far more accurately than biased “experts.”

How? Bayesian logic + data + science from *unbiased* experts, esp Dr. Gabriela Gomes. @mgmgomes1

THREAD: what we should learn. Please share widely. 1/

#rationalground 2/ In "Superforecasting," Philip Tetlock observes experts’ predictions are frequently disastrous - yet the media trots ‘em out again for more "expertise."

His research finds forecasts by thoughtful, data-driven generalists often outperform experts.
askeladdencapital.com/philip-tetlock…
Aug 21, 2020 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
Texas COVID hospitalizations decline again, now ↓49% from peak.

But let's talk about great news in Georgia, ↓25% in three weeks - quick THREAD. @kelleykphoto highlights objective data, but needs help - let's follow/RT her to help GA's good people fight media fearmongering. 1/ In a fact-free meltdown on CNN, Dr. Sanjay Gupta once again blamed GA's coronavirus situation on Gov. Kemp's early reopening. One tiny problem: hospitalizations in GA *decreased* for SIX WEEKS from reopening into June, so spread *declined* after reopening. Reaching, much? 2/
Aug 14, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
People are trying to censor research findings, like heterogeneity (Gomes) and strength of T-cell response - because they might support a "right wing" agenda.

Wow. Team Reality isn't just Team MAGA. It includes plenty of liberals/moderates who dislike Trump - but like data. A *significant fraction* of the people I interact with on Team Reality - myself included - did not vote for Trump in 2016. To characterize people trying to advance scientifically-backed explanations of reality as all MAGA conspiracy theorists is profoundly incorrect.
May 29, 2020 • 84 tweets • 13 min read
MEGATHREAD on important recent findings on immunity against SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19, including *duration* of immunity as well as *prevalence* of immunity among BOTH recovered individuals and uninfected, “susceptible” individuals. (1/n) I have a degree in biochemistry and did some research in a genetics lab as a student (including performing PCR), but am not an expert on immunology, so apologies if I oversimplify some issues here. Everything is sourced for you to fact-check yourself. (2/n)
Apr 8, 2019 • 23 tweets • 8 min read
@rubenpinta Ruben – very kind of you to say – however, I would like to share some of my own story in my first ever “tweetstorm” – @rubenpinta 1) Five years ago, I too idolized an investor who I wanted to be like in 5 years – he was a mentor of mine – we’ll call him “T,” I had met him when I was an editor for Seeking Alpha;