Since Covid, many colleges have dropped their SAT and ACT requirements. But now that decision is creating problems – because the tests contain real information about students’ likelihood of doing well in college.
The evidence is extensive and growing. 🧵

nytimes.com/2024/01/07/bri… Consider this new data, from prof's at Dartmouth and Brown, based on data from elite colleges.... There’s only a modest relationship between high school grades and college grades. The relationship between test scores and college grades, though, is strong.

opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/upl…

I consider this chart to be the clearest indictment of our country’s path over the last several decades: In 1980, the U.S. had a typical life expectancy for an affluent country. Today, the U.S. has the lowest life expectancy of any affluent country: I’ve spent the last several years writing a book that tries to make sense of how our country has gotten here – and what we can do to set ourselves on a different path. I hope you’ll read it.
penguinrandomhouse.com/books/217260/o…

The U.S. has reached a major milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal. https://t.co/jYj9ohIReynytimes.com/2023/07/17/bri…
During Covid’s worst phases, the total number of Americans dying each day was more than 30% higher than normal.

For long stretches of the past three years, the excess was 10+%.

But during the past few months, excess deaths have fallen almost to zero.

The public filings in most legal cases are of secondary importance. What happens in the courtroom matters far more. But the United States of America v. Donald J. Trump is obviously not a typical case.

🧵 Perhaps its most unusual aspect is the reality that the defendant could become the president of the United States before the case has finished. Were that to happen, the defendant-cum-president would probably order the Justice Department to drop the case. And he might succeed.

Obamacare isn't as widely accepted as Social Security or Medicare, but it's following the same path they did. It started as an object of partisan rancor and harsh criticism. Now, it's increasingly accepted by Democrats and Republicans alike. 🧵 nytimes.com/2023/03/29/bri… Consider:
* When Congress was considering Social Security in 1935, conservatives and many business executives bitterly criticized it. One Texas newspaper described Social Security as “a huge sales tax on everybody on behalf of the oldsters"...

Many Americans who would benefit most from Paxlovid and other post-infection Covid treatments are not receiving them.

It's a major problem. The country could prevent most ongoing Covid deaths - and maybe a very large majority - if this changed. 🧵 There seem to be two main explanations for the underuse of Paxlovid and monoclonal antibodies:

1) The public discussion of them has tended to focus on caveats and concerns, rather than on the overwhelming evidence that they reduce the risk of hospitalization and death.

Have the original racial gaps in Covid gaps really disappeared? Yes. By either of the main measures, the Black and Latino Covid death rates are no longer higher than the white rate. Here’s what happened … 🧵nytimes.com/2022/10/04/bri… Early in the pandemic, there were very large gaps, with the Black and Latino rates of serious Covid and death much higher than the white rates. A major reason: Lack of convenient vaccine access in many communities.

American democracy faces two major threats: 1) a movement within the Republican Party that refuses to accept election defeat; 2) a growing disconnect between public opinion and government power. 🧵

nytimes.com/2022/09/17/us/… The Jan. 6 attack was the only most obvious part of the movement that refuses to accept election defeat. Hundreds of elected Republican officials around the country falsely claim that the 2020 election was rigged, suggesting they may be willing to overturn a future election.

Traffic deaths in the U.S. have surged over the past two years -- the biggest % increase since the 1940s. And the worst toll is falling on Black Americans and low-income families. nytimes.com/2022/08/23/bri… Traffic deaths have been falling for most of the past 50 years in the U.S. They began falling around 1970, thanks in large part to the consumer movement started by Ralph Nader. Cars became safer. States passed seatbelt laws. Drunken driving became less common.

Congress is dysfunctional. It's such an unobjectionable point as to be a cliché. But it hasn't really been true over the past two years. Instead, Congress has been strikingly functional.

Consider all that it's passed... 🧵 The 117th Congress has passed bipartisan legislation to:
* Help Ukraine fight Russia
* Build up U.S. infrastructure
* Help the U.S. compete with China
* Tighten gun safety
* Overhaul the Postal Service
* Protect victims of sexual misconduct
* Expand veterans' health care

The bill that Biden is set to sign soon is the most aggressive response to climate change that the US government has ever enacted. It also reduces economic and racial inequities in the health care system.

And it could not have happened without Joe Manchin in the Senate.

🧵 I understand why progressives were so frustrated with Manchin in recent months. He seemed on the verge of blocking a rare chance for meaningful climate action. And seemed willing to undermine the Biden presidency. But now that Manchin pivoted, it’s worth putting him in context.

Early in the pandemic, Covid’s death rate was far higher for Black and Latino Americans than for white Americans. That’s no longer true. Why? Above all, vaccination. 🧵 First, the background: During Covid’s early months, the per capita death rate for Black Americans was almost twice as high as the white rate and 2+x the Asian rate. The Latino death rate was in between, substantially lower than the Black rate but still above average.

On Sunday, I spent nearly five hours flying home from the West Coast. For long stretches of the flight, whenever the crew was serving food and drinks, many passengers were not wearing masks. Even when people did have their masks on, many wore them below their noses.
🧵 Which is to say: Even before a judge struck down the transportation mandate, it's wasn't much of a mandate. It was more an aspiration than a reality.

The Covid virus doesn’t take a break from spreading so that you can enjoy the in-flight beverage service.

The official number of new Covid cases in the U.S. has stopped falling over the past week, and many experts expect increases soon, because of the BA.2 subvariant.

What can the country do to reduce Covid's toll in coming months? Here are four steps. 🧵nytimes.com/2022/03/28/bri… Importantly, all four of these measures can help protect people regardless of what happens to caseloads in coming weeks. And none of the four will deepen the pandemic's secondary crisis of isolation and disruption (like lost schooling, mental-health problems and more).

In January, @MorningConsult and @nytimes did a poll looking at how Covid attitudes differed between Democrats and Republicans. That poll made me want to go deeper and also look at attitudes among different kinds of Democrats and Republicans. Now we have the results. 🧵 We asked respondents to choose one of seven labels: very liberal, liberal, slightly liberal, moderate, slightly conservative, conservative or very conservative.

And we found that not just partisan identity but also ideology plays a central role in shaping Covid attitudes.

An update on Red Covid: The partisan gap has continued to grow — with Covid deaths higher in heavily Republican areas — during the Omicron wave, but that gap is growing more slowly than before.

🧵 nytimes.com/2022/02/18/bri… A brief history:
1. Covid arrives first in costal cities, which are heavily Democratic.
2. Then it spreads across the across the U.S. By early 2021, cumulative deaths are similar across red, purple and blue areas.
3. The vaccines arrive, and the situation changes sharply.

The United States is enduring its most severe increase in traffic deaths since the 1940s.

The frustration and aggression of pandemic life seem to be the main causes.

nytimes.com/2022/02/15/bri… Deaths from vehicle crashes have generally been falling since the late 1960s, thanks mostly to vehicle improvements, lower speed limits and declines in drunken driving. By 2019, the annual death rate from crashes was near its lowest level since the 1920s.

Then came Covid.

At this point in the pandemic, there is a strong argument that a targeted approach — lifting restrictions while taking specific measures to protect the vulnerable — can maximize public health.

What kind of specific measures? 🧵 The right Covid approach, as @JenniferNuzzo says, involves “moving away from broad, blunt tools to more precision tools.”

If you're waiting for the CDC to tell you how to think about masks, here's something to consider: Do you eat more than a teaspoon of salt a day? The CDC says you should not.

Experts are enormously valuable, but we can't expect them to tell us how to live. nytimes.com/2022/02/11/bri… * Don't eat cookie dough.
* Medium-rare burgers are dangerous.
* Women of childbearing age shouldn't drink unless they're on birth control.

These are all CDC messages. The agency does many things extremely well. But thinking about risk holistically often is not one of them.

It's clear that masks can slow the spread of Covid. So why do they seem to do so little to slow the spread of the virus in schools? 🧵 nytimes.com/2022/02/08/bri… Among the evidence: Studies — in Florida and in England, for example — tend to find little effect on caseloads. One study that did find an effect has been largely debunked, as @davidzweig has explained. theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

Why does the U.S. trail so many other countries in getting booster shots into arms? There are multiple answers. But I think an important one is the communication flaws of our public-health bureaucracy. 🧵 nytimes.com/2022/02/07/bri… First, look at how badly the US trails in boosters: