{"version":"1.0","type":"rich","provider_name":"Acast","provider_url":"https://acast.com","height":250,"width":700,"html":"<iframe src=\"https://embed.acast.com/$/9a03fe9e-1ff0-4dcc-b3f6-50bd1f016ea4/ea39f457-b31c-45fc-abd7-d8e9c39b0df1?\" frameBorder=\"0\" width=\"700\" height=\"250\"></iframe>","title":"Nate Silver","thumbnail_width":200,"thumbnail_height":200,"thumbnail_url":"https://open-images.acast.com/shows/6195701f2eacc3a36070252a/619570bccb3c660012e3cfe6.jpg?height=200","description":"<p>David and Helen talk to 538's Nate Silver about how to read the pandemic data and what they mean for politics.&nbsp;What do we know now that we didn't know six weeks ago?&nbsp;How should we model the future trajectory of the disease?&nbsp;Where does it leave the election in November?&nbsp;A conversation about everything from death rates to spring breaks, and from Belgium to Biden.</p><p><br></p><p>Talking Points:&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><p>Are the COVID models we are using now better than they were before?</p><ul><li>People don’t always understand the conditional predictions behind different models.</li><li>There is still a lot of uncertainty: almost every parameter of this disease remains unknown.</li><li>It looks like the downward tail of this disease might be less steep than the upward tail.</li></ul><p><br></p><p>What is the true fatality rate?&nbsp;</p><ul><li>We are still behind on testing—we don’t know how many cases are undiagnosed.</li><li>This number is important for making decisions about opening things up again.</li><li>The number of deaths as a share of the population probably tells you more than deaths as a share of cases.</li><li>A lot of deaths are still being missed.</li></ul><p><br></p><p>Places that had cases earlier before there was consensus on social distancing will have worse outbreaks.</p><ul><li>Factors such as age distribution and maybe even weather might also affect things.&nbsp;</li><li>It’s still hard to tease out the effect of different variables, but eventually we should be able to make some better inferences.</li></ul><p><br></p><p>International coverage of the US doesn’t reflect how empowered state and local governments are. In some sense, they are the most important units.</p><ul><li>Despite the lack of federal response, state and local responses have been fairly good—at least in a lot of places.</li><li>Most countries locked down at roughly the same point in the disease cycle. The country by country differences may be more felt in the recovery phase.</li></ul><p><br></p><p>How will the pandemic affect the upcoming U.S. election?</p><ul><li>Trump’s approval rating improved slightly, but only slightly. It’s a smaller ‘rally around the flag’ effect than in other countries.</li><li>Will the fall bring recovery or a second wave?</li><li>Will the contingencies or the fundamentals explain the outcome?</li></ul><p><br></p><p>Mentioned in this Episode:&nbsp;</p><ul><li><a href=\"https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/coronavirus-polls/?ex_cid=rrpromo\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">538 on coronavirus polling</a></li><li><a href=\"https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/?ex_cid=rrpromo\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Trump’s approval ratings</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.talkingpoliticspodcast.com/blog/2020/224-super-tuesday-special-bidens-back\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Our Super Tuesday podcast</a></li></ul><p><br></p><p>Further Learning:&nbsp;</p><ul><li><a href=\"https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-its-so-freaking-hard-to-make-a-good-covid-19-model/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">538 on why it’s so hard to make a good COVID-19 model</a></li><li><a href=\"https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-urban-or-rural-is-your-state-and-what-does-that-mean-for-the-2020-election/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">And on the American urban/rural divide</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/pandemic-summer-coronavirus-reopening-back-normal/609940/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">The Atlantic on the upcoming pandemic summer</a></li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>And as ever, recommended reading curated by our friends at the LRB can be found here: </strong><a href=\"http://lrb.co.uk/talking\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>lrb.co.uk/talking</strong></a></p>","author_name":"David Runciman and Catherine Carr"}