I posted my first mock draft of 2020 on Wednesday for subscribers to The Athletic, since we are now just 26 days away from the first night of the draft, which will only be five rounds. I wrote last week about the impact of the shorter draft on players and the sport as a whole, and also did a “what-if” lookback at the Padres’ decision to take Matt Bush over Justin Verlander in 2004. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday, my first in ages.
My new book, The Inside Game, is now out and you can buy it everywhere fine books are sold, including here on bookshop.org; I’m donating my affiliate commissions from sales of my book through the site to my local food bank. The Eugene Register-Guard has a nice review of both The Inside Game and Brad Balukjian’s The Wax Pack.
My guest on this week’s episode of The Keith Law Show was San Francisco Chronicle baseball writer John Shea, whose book 24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid, co-authored with Willie Mays, was released on Tuesday. I’m scheduled to have Cubs infielder/outfielder Ian Happ on the show this upcoming week to talk about his charitable endeavors with artisanal coffee. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify.
At Paste, I reviewed The Sherlock Files: Elementary Edition, a new card-based deduction game that played better than I expected, although the Sherlock character isn’t remotely involved in the game’s story or mechanics. My review of the excellent digital adaptation of Sagrada is up over at Ars Technica.
I sent out another edition of my email newsletter on Friday night to subscribers; it’s free and you can sign up here.
And now, the links…
- Longreads … well, medium-reads first: The New Yorker has a look at the secret world of fungi, the botanical kingdom that goes way beyond the mushrooms you likely pictured when you read that.
- ProPublica has a piece explaining how climate change is pushing up infectious disease rates, and making pandemics more likely in the future.
- The Guardian looks at former US army sergeant’s abortive plot to overthrow Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
- “For conservative zealots and media figures, the pandemic is quickly becoming just another culture war battleground — an axis of postmodern symbolic conflict, another vent for bottomless grievance, and fuel for a screeching victimhood complex.” This from The Week’s Ryan Cooper, who also points out that the United States’ response to COVID-19 has been the worst of any developed nation and argues that the problem of conservative victimhood has made governing the U.S. impossible.
- Some countries are easing restrictions on movement and gatherings, but other nations are restoring such isolation measures because of increases in new cases.
- Get ready for a massive disinformation effort against a COVID-19 vaccine; it has started online even though such a vaccine doesn’t actually exist.
- A commentary in CalMatters, authored by two professors in the University of California system, gives helpful tips for journalists asked to cover anti-vaccine or anti-lockdown “protests,” most of which are very small and may be astroturfed events.
- For example, Creative Loafing Tampa revealed that a “reopen Florida” rally was, in fact, organized by an anti-vaccine group – which multiple mainstream Tampa media outlets failed to mention in their coverage of the protest.
- Various states’ lockdown efforts have led anti-vaccine groups to team up with pro-Trump agitators in some of these protests, the strangest of bedfellows other than their shared denial of science.
- Many red states are now seeing cases surge even as Trump claims (falsely) the pandemic is subsiding.
- GOP-controlled legislatures are up to some shit while we’re distracted by the pandemic, such as Missouri Republicans attempting to gut gerrymandering reform.
- An interesting topic for debate: Do works by authors accused of sexual harassment belong in the classroom? I think the answer at the university level would mostly be “yes,” but what about high school? Junior high school? Can you have a serious discussion about separating artist from art, or about the specifics of any accusations, with 16-year-olds or 12-year-olds or younger kids?
- Tribune Publishing is furloughing workers and cutting pay to save about $550,000 just months after distributing $9 million in cash to shareholders.
- Nik Sharma, author of the wonderful cookbook Season, writes in the Washington Post on how to make a flavorful vegetable stock that contains just five ingredients other than water.
- The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent warns that, as in 2016, too many media members lend credence to bullshit conspiracies and outright lies from the Trump camp through weasel wording.
- From a few weeks ago: McSweeney’s hits rather close to home with “Emails from My Children’s School Before 8:00 AM During the COVID-19 Crisis.”
- Jess Grose’s latest parenting column for the New York Times, on dealing with home-schooling burnout, has a note at the end from a name familiar to board game fans.
- Renegade Game Studios are holding a virtual game convention on June 5-7 where they’ll announce a bunch of upcoming new games as well.
- Cranio Creations has a Kickstarter up for their planned reissue of the 2004 Wolfgang Kramer/Michael Kiesling game Maharaja, reimagined by Simone Luciani (Tzolk’in, Grand Austria Hotel).
You note where cases are surging. Have you looked at the data coming out of Georgia and Florida since re-opening?
Florida looks to be decreasing, but it seems Georgia seems to be plateauing. Both states had a large increase of tests results on May 1, so it makes comparing everything difficult. Why is there the large increase on May 1? Probably just labs getting results done before EOM.
If we include the large increase on May 1 (1,232 results) for Georgia, the per day average for May is 701. If we don’t include it, it is 663. If we look at Saturday to Friday results, May 2 to May 8 averaged 668 per day. May 9 to May 15 averaged 657 per day. Florida’s May 2 to May 8 average was 639, while May 9 to May 15 was 573.
All the numbers I used were from the respective Wikipedia article They get their numbers from the Dept of Health in each state.
It’s still pretty early as it can take several weeks before we see spikes.
Just to clarify, the numbers above are from the increase in positive test results that come in every day, not from how Georgia is assigning probable infection date.
Note that Georgia changed the way that they report new covid-19 cases, assigning the date of probable infection instead of the date reported. Which means that the reported numbers for the last 2 weeks or so are minimum values, and will increase as time passes and additional cases are reported. So we don’t really know the impact of relaxing restrictions, and won’t for another few weeks.
Kind of my point. If we’re going to note spikes, note other trends as well. Otherwise we’re cherry picking.
https://twitter.com/_gtjay/status/1261382887766667264
Here is an excellent graphic representation of what happens when you attempt to report cases by likely date of onset instead of test date, as Georgia is doing — watch the backfilling as each day recedes into the forgotten past.
I should add that the attempt to discern onset date is I’m sure the better method from an epidemiological perspective, but we don’t think about these things very well and so are vulnerable from a political perspective.
Data collection and reporting has been inconsistent throughout, with likely political motivation (in all directions) playing a role. As a result, the data is compromised. Sad on all parties.
Kazzy, can you please provide some evidence that the pro-science side is somehow skewing, altering, or otherwise compromising the data on COVID-19?
First, I did not say the “pro-science side” skewed, altered, or compromised the data. What I said is that data collection/reporting has been inconsistent, which leads to both over and undercounting. I notice you don’t question claims of changes to Georgia that may downplay the numbers but you do question claims regarding changes that may overstate the numbers. Why is that?
As to supporting the claim I actually made:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus-deaths.html
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/coronavirus/subway-shutdown-begins-infection-rates-spike-outside-new-york-amid-devastating-toll-at-home/2404295/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/nyregion/covid-ny-update.html
(You have to dig a bit in this one but it makes mention to Cuomo’s decision to not count as “nursing home deaths” residents of nursing homes who contracted Covid there but died at a hospital; this helped keep down the count of nursing home deaths, which he was taking heat for after not taking certain measures to minimize the spread in those locations)
It does not seem controversial to say that data collection and reporting has been inconsistent. It is possible that the more recent methods are the better methods, but they make tracking trends over time impossible.
I also take issue with the idea that there is a single “pro-science” side. There is a medical science side, but even there exists a lack of unified consensus on appropriate steps to take.
Your First book? Who ghost wrote Smart Baseball?
Fixed, thanks.
Underreporting of cases was likely more of a problem in April than it is now, due to less availability of tests, correct? That complicates the matter of calling anything at present a surge.
A good way to tell if a state is testing enough is to look at the percent of tests that come back positive. The lower the number, the better the state is doing at catching more cases. Anything above 10% is means significant under-testing.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/individual-states/usa
Another “whoopsie”: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/498142-colorado-lowers-coronavirus-death-count-from-more-than-1k-to-878
Are these people anti-science?
Calling it a “whoopsie” only undermines your argument.
Meanwhile:
All this supports my argument: all the numbers have errors in, some understandable and some not. Pointing to any one number uncritically shows you aren’t being exactly pro-science.
I answered your questions; can you answer mine?
Isn’t that essentially what you just did, Kazzy?
I shared several links because Keith asked where it was happening. I’m not making definitive claims like he is.
Seriously, when did this place become fact-agnostic?