Perhaps you saw this article in the NYT yesterday with the headline, “U.S. Quietly Fears Virus’s Daily Toll Will Soon Double”? CNN’s Brian Stelter is still posting about it this morning:
NYT's scoop: "U.S. QUIETLY FEARS VIRUS'S DAILY TOLL WILL SOON DOUBLE." Trump's response: "I know nothing about it. I don't know anything about it. Nobody told me that. I think it's — I think it's false, I think it’s fake news." pic.twitter.com/nKNHJwRb6q
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 5, 2020
Here’s the opener:
As President Trump presses for states to reopen their economies, his administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths over the next several weeks. The daily death toll will reach about 3,000 on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, a 70 percent increase from the current number of about 1,750.
The projections, based on government modeling pulled together by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases a day currently.
But 538’s Nate Silver immediately noted something off with what was reported in the article:
Why are *reported* deaths in this slide so different than projected deaths? Was this a model originally developed in March or something? It is very strange. https://t.co/Pb4XdigjgT pic.twitter.com/xJxNftpj7Y
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) May 4, 2020
He warned not to take these numbers “at face value”:
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Projecting ~200K new detected cases each day **by the end of the month** from a current baseline of ~30K is also a LOT, even with quite pessimistic assumptions. I would encourage some caution with taking these at face value.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) May 4, 2020
“This also doesn’t make much sense”:
Indeed, this also doesn't make much sense.https://t.co/RzV2Hufgh2
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) May 4, 2020
He even theorized the White House leaked these numbers on purpose to make themselves look better later on:
Without more context and explanation, are we sure that the White House isn't just leaking these to make the actual, merely-awful numbers look better by comparison?
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) May 4, 2020
Or maybe they were leaked to scare the president:
Yeah, could also be: someone wants to scare Trump out of touting re-opening, so they're releasing some sort of worst-case scenario or conjectural scenario and it's being portrayed as the base case.https://t.co/dO8uFcdxX5
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) May 4, 2020
But then the Washington Post added some context to the numbers, and it’s not good news for the NYT: “The 200k cases/day number was from an incomplete draft version of model and apparently one of many scenarios, not some sort of official White House estimate”:
So the Washington Post adds a lot more context, though I think their headline is misleading. The 200k cases/day number was from an incomplete draft version of model and apparently one of many scenarios, not some sort of official White House estimate.https://t.co/jfS0m2aDN6 pic.twitter.com/u0AGMMYVcq
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) May 4, 2020
“. . . it was irresponsible of them to release the slide deck and put such bold, somewhat misleading headlines on it without providing any of that context”:
The NYT is doing great work on COVID-19. But especially given how much confusion already exists about projections and models, it was irresponsible of them to release the slide deck and put such bold, somewhat misleading headlines on it without providing any of that context.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) May 4, 2020
Does the NYT realize the damage they’re doing here? People are at a point where they don’t trust anything and that’s really bad for both sides:
I'm not sure NYC-DC media people get how stuff like this is playing in the rest of America. It's anecdotal, but in my social media circle, people who were once trusting of the threat are now questioning everything. https://t.co/gL5Hw5T91x
— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) May 5, 2020
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