Now that we’ve reached 3 weeks from the CA shutdown, it is important to evaluate the data & set down some rational markers for evaluating what @GavinNewsom has done & whether he really deserves all this praise. Here’s an extensive thread with analysis the news media won’t provide

2/9 This began for me right after Newsom’s decision when I wrote this column detailing why his statistical justification (that over 22.5 million Californians would get this virus in the next 8 weeks) for the shutdown was both inaccurate and irresponsible... https://www.mediaite.com/opinion/heres-why-the-statistical-basis-for-gavin-newsoms-shutdown-of-california-is-absurd-and-irresponsible/

3/9 My column explains the only way to get to that number is for the total of confirmed cases to increase 20% every day for 8 straight weeks. Here is a chart showing how it was supposed to work. As you can see, with about 20,000 cases now, CA is at about 1/2 the cases predicted.

4/9 What is particularly shocking about this is that even I expected us to be at, or even past, the 20% pace at this point because a massive increase in testing would inevitably dump a huge amount of old cases all at the start of extensive accounting, but that’s hardly happened.

5/9 For those who may claim that this is because of a lack of testing, the reality is that CA has done lots of testing and currently has one of the lowest rates of positive tests in the USA (about 1 in 8), meaning the standard for getting a test can’t be extremely stringent.

6/9 Another very important aspect of the data is the huge lag time between when a case is contracted & when it becomes a statistic. This is at least a week & especially in case of deaths, can take up to 4 weeks. This means we are only NOW seeing data from mostly AFTER CA shutdown

7/9 This is why the very popular view that CA is a model for how to handle this & that Newsom should be roundly praised, while possibly true, is NOT currently based on data. We will only be able to tell the true impact of the shutdown based on data which comes out starting NOW.

8/9 For the record, my problem with the CA shutdown has always primarily been with it’s deceitful/dangerous justification & it’s nonsensical implementation. It’s quite possible that the data will eventually show it was effective, but that doesn’t mean it was worth all of the HUGE

9/9 collateral damage it’s caused to every aspect of life. It’s also still possible the data may eventually show CA was never going to have a huge crisis after the shutdown & Newsom is being praised for killing a monster with a nuclear bomb, 1 which was no longer a mortal threat.