Read on Twitter
I'm kicking this again because I think that it's important to underscore: The decision to count something is a political decision. And the count of a thing is not necessarily reflective of the underlying incidence of that thing, and may be more reflective of the counting process. https://twitter.com/ProfHalloran/status/1232638494603988998
Related content: https://twitter.com/alexismadrigal/status/1234911867207745536?s=20
Hi, Chris, become comfortable with not knowing how many cases there are. In fact, become comfortable with not even coming close to knowing how many cases there are. Cases are really, really hard to count. https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1234929424593756161?s=20
Related content (indicators for system performance/proxies for incidence): https://twitter.com/NickRHart/status/1234654161897185280
When considering system capacity in both counting/handling cases, identifying potential choke points which limit that capacity is important. In the case of coronavirus, this article notes limitations of labs/labor in identifying cases: https://www.propublica.org/article/i-lived-through-sars-and-reported-on-ebola-these-are-the-questions-we-should-be-asking-about-coronavirus
This thread adds an interesting dimension to the systems analysis; How fast can you get new capacity on line.
In systems (like child welfare) that run at near capacity, increasing that capacity (new beds/foster parents, new workers, etc.) is a process that has its own timeline. https://twitter.com/LizSpecht/status/1236095184170958849
In systems (like child welfare) that run at near capacity, increasing that capacity (new beds/foster parents, new workers, etc.) is a process that has its own timeline. https://twitter.com/LizSpecht/status/1236095184170958849
And so we don’t lose the thread, these systems things aren’t just tangentially related to the case counts: these are things that are partially responsible for those counts. We can’t think of counting solely on the individual level, we must think of it contextually, ecologically.
Another reason systems thinking is important is because eventually you encounter a justice question like: ‘I wonder when we will begin asking the hard questions such as "if hospital beds become scarce, who gets in?"’
Asked and answered here: https://twitter.com/DellAnnaLuca/status/1236459870557102080
Asked and answered here: https://twitter.com/DellAnnaLuca/status/1236459870557102080
Here’s a story about the consequences of these kinds of capacity constraints and systems effects playing out in the child welfare system. https://twitter.com/ProPublicaIL/status/1237696776708263937
When resources are scarce or capacity constrained, then there is necessarily required some way to allocate those resources. This has practical and ethical consequences. https://twitter.com/GovindPersad/status/1238253335423090689
Here’s a pretty clear (and simple!) example of how policies around how counts are done/reported impacts things: https://twitter.com/JustinWolfers/status/1239155894144860161
Here’s an interesting illustration of how prevention strategies impact bed capacity: https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/1239688968058396672
When we’re thinking about system capacity, it is a function (though not an aggregate sum, for various reasons) of multiple capacity constraints that exist within the system. Here’s an example: https://twitter.com/JoeKristol/status/1240244523164471296
And I just realized that I’ve hopelessly muddled all of these different systems threads... Here’s another one that should be joined to this: https://twitter.com/ProfHalloran/status/1235298459026104326
And here's an interesting thread on ventilator capacity: https://twitter.com/CitizenCohn/status/1240262582780473347?s=20
This is an article on the difficulty of achieving accurate case counts. A must read. https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/1242994053794365440
And an intensely political part of the problem with obtaining case counts that reflect the scale of the problem: https://twitter.com/MarcACaputo/status/1243234188045795328?s=20
Another really interesting article on case counts/undercounts. https://twitter.com/GlennKesslerWP/status/1243528639330820096?s=20
This is a really good (not at all boring) thread on the ways that we can think about count data that's related to COVID-19. https://twitter.com/politicalmath/status/1243950119684206598?s=20
Undercounting both cases and deaths was inevitable, and I’m glad that the problem of counting is receiving attention in the Times.
Remember counts are political. Remember counts say as much about the process of counting as they say about the underlying phenomenon. https://twitter.com/sarahkliff/status/1246863725438664709
Remember counts are political. Remember counts say as much about the process of counting as they say about the underlying phenomenon. https://twitter.com/sarahkliff/status/1246863725438664709
Another piece on indicators and undercounting: https://twitter.com/mckaycoppins/status/1247480287807836161
Yeah, one of the biggest unknowns right now is the prevalence of coronavirus in America. And it’s an unknown because a lack of wide scale testing prevents us from even being in the neighborhood with our estimates about number of cases. https://twitter.com/theplumlinegs/status/1248937990786822145
This thread is a look at how deviations from expected mortality trends can help us evaluate death counts in a historical context. https://twitter.com/sangerkatz/status/1248685404775239680
An interesting read on how hospitals can increase capacity: https://twitter.com/RANDCorporation/status/1249870991225913344
Remember when we were talking about how the decisions whether to and how to count were political? https://twitter.com/ImmCivilRights/status/1250806395383042049
Again, I think the undercounting of COVID deaths has a whole lot of explanations (most of which don’t include the phrase cover up) but the WaPo and NYT stories about excess deaths raise lots of questions about the range of COVID mortality. https://twitter.com/No_Little_Plans/status/1255677399150268417
Here’s the WaPo article: https://twitter.com/WeinbergerDan/status/1254802347894558720
Here’s the NY Times article: https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1255502123644661768
Again, counting isn’t simple. Even counting deaths—which, in a way, seems obvious—isn’t simple.
To understand what a count means we need to understand what is counted and why. https://twitter.com/JimPethokoukis/status/1256022722745901056
To understand what a count means we need to understand what is counted and why. https://twitter.com/JimPethokoukis/status/1256022722745901056
Tangential to COVID (though close to my area of study), but important and illustrative of how the process of counting impacts what we define as the count. https://twitter.com/benconomics/status/1256022077917720576
And a gentle reminder that a critical view of count indicators (which we should all adopt) doesn’t mean that indicators themselves are worthless: https://twitter.com/katzonearth/status/1255962301783515136
This is not strictly about counting, but about modeling counts (honestly, though, one of the reasons talking about counts is important is important is because it informs the way that we interpret models). https://twitter.com/dwallacewells/status/1256579601498869761
As important a question as “what is the count” is that of “why is there a count.” https://twitter.com/Ethnography911/status/1257466901611130880
I don’t want this thread to drift too far into modeling (though count quality is an essential component of modeling), but this is an important read on how data is consumed.
I include it here, because that’s really what contextualizing counts is all about. https://twitter.com/claudiakincaid/status/1258730173924589570
I include it here, because that’s really what contextualizing counts is all about. https://twitter.com/claudiakincaid/status/1258730173924589570
When I started this thread about counts being political, I wanted to call attention to the subtle ways that information gets categorized and organized, along with the difficulties if counting. But sometimes count politics are more foregrounded: https://twitter.com/ehananoki/status/1260549784101847042?s=20
