fivethirthyeight--2020-06-23--What Economists Fear Most During This Recovery

As states push forward in their phased reopenings , we ’ re getting clues that the beleaguered U.S economy might be on its way to recovery .
Retail sales spiked by 17.7 percent in May , and the unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped in that month as well — suggesting that Americans were returning to work and opening their wallets earlier than many expected .
But experts still think that even if things are starting to look up now , we shouldn ’ t assume we ’ ll be back to normal anytime soon .
In fact , economists think there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tentative rebound , including a second wave of COVID-19 , an unwillingness to spend from consumers and an absence of an additional fiscal stimulus from Congress .
In partnership with the Initiative on Global Markets at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business , FiveThirtyEight asked 34 quantitative macroeconomic economists what they thought about a variety of subjects around the coronavirus recession and recovery efforts .
The most recent survey , which was conducted from June 19 through 22 , echoed many of the predictions from the last round — though there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their forecasts .
When we first asked about the shape of the recovery , 58 percent of respondents thought the trajectory of future U.S. gross domestic product looked like a Nike “ swoosh ” — a sharp downturn followed by a long , slow recovery .
This time around , however , a consensus has formed around a slightly different shape : a reverse radical ( i.e.
, a mirrored version of the square-root symbol ) .
This shape — which 73 percent of our economists predicted for the country ’ s economic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by a quick partial recovery and a longer period of slower , mixed growth .
But it isn ’ t necessarily an improvement over the swoosh .
“ There is nothing standard or smooth about this recovery , ” said Lisa Cook , professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University .
In her view , a reverse-radical-shaped recovery could be shaped by a spike in infections and hospitalizations , a wave of bankruptcies as unemployment benefits expire or consumers ’ unwillingness to return to gyms , nail salons or other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make the bounce back from this recession bumpier than previous recessions .
Twelve of the 17 economists who had predicted a swoosh in our survey in late May changed to the reverse radical this time , leaving just five respondents sticking with the swoosh in this round of the survey .
( And no economist switched to the swoosh , another sign that other patterns fit the trajectory of this economic recovery better . )
“ By now , the partial reopening of the economy , along with the new unemployment and retail @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effect for the economy , ” said Allan Timmermann , professor of finance and economics at the University of California , San Diego , who has been consulting with us on the design of the survey .
“ However , our panel is not convinced that this recovery will last , since they did not opt for the V-shaped recovery — in fact , it is interesting that not a single person opted for the V-shape.
” Overall , the surveyed group didn ’ t meaningfully budge on its projections for either GDP @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked .
Nor did it change its long-term timeline for when GDP might return to its pre-coronavirus benchmark .
Maybe it ’ s encouraging that the projections haven ’ t gotten worse — but the panelists still think it ’ s unlikely ( 33 percent probability ) that GDP will creep back up to where it was in the fourth quarter of 2019 any time before the first half of 2022 .
In a new question this round , we asked respondents what factors might bring about their worst-case predictions for fourth-quarter GDP @ @ @ @ @ @ @ participant gave the most weight to the possibility of a second wave of coronavirus later in the year .
But their next-most-significant fears were economic in nature : whether consumers would be unwilling to spend even after businesses open and whether Congress would choose not to pass further economic stimulus packages : We also can not understate the weirdness of these economic times .
This led to a few other noteworthy results in our survey , starting with very high projections for the personal saving rate , which ballooned to a record 33 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ metric , saving is expressed as a share of disposable personal income . )
Our group of economists doesn ’ t think it will stay quite that high going forward , but the respondents did predict a mean saving rate of 20.2 percent in June with an 80 percent confidence interval ranging from 13 percent on the low end to nearly 29 percent on the high side .
To put that in context : According to data going back to 1959 from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis , the U.S. personal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 17.3 percent before the coronavirus and had seldom gone into the double digits since the early 1990s .
Gloria Gonzalez-Rivera , a professor of economics at the University of California , Riverside , told us that she didn ’ t think the June saving rate would match April ’ s simply because Americans had fewer opportunities to spend their money at the height of the state-level lockdowns .
But she added that she still expected consumers to be “ conservative ” in June .
“ A high savings rate is a sign that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going to be low , ” said Jonathan Wright , an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University who , along with Timmermann , has been guiding the design of the survey .
“ My spending is someone else ’ s income .
So when people start to save a lot , that really slows down the recovery.
” The unusual nature of this recession also showed up in our respondents ’ prediction for which investments might deliver the highest return over the rest of the year .
As we wrote about last week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regaining most of its initial coronavirus-related losses since late March , even as the rest of the economy sits in a very tenuous place .
Our panel generally thinks that disconnect between the stock market and the broader economy will continue .
When given the choice among three investments , the panelists thought there was a 45 percent chance that NASDAQ — with its heavy emphasis on tech stocks — would perform best , followed by the S & P 500 at 34 percent .
The economists thought there was just a 21 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , traditionally a safe haven in an environment of uncertainty and low corporate earnings , would provide the highest rate of return by the end of 2020 .
Overall , the economists in our survey think the economy has a long way to go before it returns to normal .
Much of its path from here will hinge on the state of the virus itself , with additional emphasis on the government ’ s response .
But the panel also sees many of the stranger features of this particular recession continuing to some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s disconnect with the rest of the economy to the extraordinary levels of personal savings by Americans .
And of course , the error bars around the forecasts remain wide — as befits one of the most unpredictable economic moments in recent history .

As states push forward in their phased reopenings, we’re getting clues that the beleaguered U.S economy might be on its way to recovery. Retail sales spiked by 17.7 percent in May, and the unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped in that month as well — suggesting that Americans were returning to work and opening their wallets earlier than many expected. But experts still think that even if things are starting to look up now, we shouldn’t assume we’ll be back to normal anytime soon. In fact, economists think there are still significant economic risks despite the tentative rebound, including a second wave of COVID-19, an unwillingness to spend from consumers and an absence of an additional fiscal stimulus from Congress.
In partnership with the Initiative on Global Markets at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, FiveThirtyEight asked 34 quantitative macroeconomic economists what they thought about a variety of subjects around the coronavirus recession and recovery efforts. The most recent survey, which was conducted from June 19 through 22, echoed many of the predictions from the last round — though there were also a few new wrinkles in their forecasts.
When we first asked about the shape of the recovery, 58 percent of respondents thought the trajectory of future U.S. gross domestic product looked like a Nike “swoosh” — a sharp downturn followed by a long, slow recovery. This time around, however, a consensus has formed around a slightly different shape: a reverse radical (i.e., a mirrored version of the square-root symbol).
This shape — which 73 percent of our economists predicted for the country’s economic future — implies a steep drop followed by a quick partial recovery and a longer period of slower, mixed growth. But it isn’t necessarily an improvement over the swoosh. “There is nothing standard or smooth about this recovery,” said Lisa Cook, professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University. In her view, a reverse-radical-shaped recovery could be shaped by a spike in infections and hospitalizations, a wave of bankruptcies as unemployment benefits expire or consumers’ unwillingness to return to gyms, nail salons or other parts of their routine. That could make the bounce back from this recession bumpier than previous recessions.
Twelve of the 17 economists who had predicted a swoosh in our survey in late May changed to the reverse radical this time, leaving just five respondents sticking with the swoosh in this round of the survey. (And no economist switched to the swoosh, another sign that other patterns fit the trajectory of this economic recovery better.)
Subscribe to our coronavirus podcast, PODCAST-19
“By now, the partial reopening of the economy, along with the new unemployment and retail sales numbers, suggest a substantial bounce-back effect for the economy,” said Allan Timmermann, professor of finance and economics at the University of California, San Diego, who has been consulting with us on the design of the survey. “However, our panel is not convinced that this recovery will last, since they did not opt for the V-shaped recovery — in fact, it is interesting that not a single person opted for the V-shape.”
Overall, the surveyed group didn’t meaningfully budge on its projections for either GDP or unemployment from the last time we asked. Nor did it change its long-term timeline for when GDP might return to its pre-coronavirus benchmark. Maybe it’s encouraging that the projections haven’t gotten worse — but the panelists still think it’s unlikely (33 percent probability) that GDP will creep back up to where it was in the fourth quarter of 2019 any time before the first half of 2022.
Outlook on the GDP hasn’t improved since early June Consensus forecasts for when U.S. gross domestic product will return to its pre-coronavirus level, in each round of the survey Probability TIME FRAME Rd. 1 (May 25) Rd. 2 (June 8) Rd. 3 (June 22) First half of 2021 or earlier 11% 10% 11% Second half of 2021 18 21 22 First half of 2022 18 23 22 Second half of 2022 21 22 22 Later than the second half of 2022 33 25 24 Probabilities are based on the average of the 28 economists who answered this question in all three surveys. Source: FIVETHIRTYEIGHT/IGM COVID-19 ECONOMIC outlook SURVEY
In a new question this round, we asked respondents what factors might bring about their worst-case predictions for fourth-quarter GDP growth. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the average participant gave the most weight to the possibility of a second wave of coronavirus later in the year. But their next-most-significant fears were economic in nature: whether consumers would be unwilling to spend even after businesses open and whether Congress would choose not to pass further economic stimulus packages:
What might cause a worst-case scenario? How much weight economists gave various scenarios when setting the lower bound of their GDP predictions for the fourth quarter of 2020 Factor Weight A bad “second wave” of coronavirus in the summer or fall 41.6% Public aversion to consumer spending even after businesses reopen 20.4 Decision by policymakers not to pass further fiscal stimulus 19.0 Weakness in the banking or financial system 9.7 Slower-than-expected development of a coronavirus vaccine 7.9 Other 1.3 Weights are an average of responses in a survey of 34 economists conducted June 19-22. Source: FIVETHIRTYEIGHT/IGM COVID-19 ECONOMIC OUTLOOK SURVEY
We also cannot understate the weirdness of these economic times. This led to a few other noteworthy results in our survey, starting with very high projections for the personal saving rate, which ballooned to a record 33 percent in April. (In that metric, saving is expressed as a share of disposable personal income.) Our group of economists doesn’t think it will stay quite that high going forward, but the respondents did predict a mean saving rate of 20.2 percent in June with an 80 percent confidence interval ranging from 13 percent on the low end to nearly 29 percent on the high side. To put that in context: According to data going back to 1959 from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the U.S. personal saving rate had never been higher than 17.3 percent before the coronavirus and had seldom gone into the double digits since the early 1990s.
Gloria Gonzalez-Rivera, a professor of economics at the University of California, Riverside, told us that she didn’t think the June saving rate would match April’s simply because Americans had fewer opportunities to spend their money at the height of the state-level lockdowns. But she added that she still expected consumers to be “conservative” in June.
“A high savings rate is a sign that consumer confidence is low and spending is going to be low,” said Jonathan Wright, an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University who, along with Timmermann, has been guiding the design of the survey. “My spending is someone else’s income. So when people start to save a lot, that really slows down the recovery.”
The unusual nature of this recession also showed up in our respondents’ prediction for which investments might deliver the highest return over the rest of the year. As we wrote about last week, the stock market has been busy regaining most of its initial coronavirus-related losses since late March, even as the rest of the economy sits in a very tenuous place. Our panel generally thinks that disconnect between the stock market and the broader economy will continue. When given the choice among three investments, the panelists thought there was a 45 percent chance that NASDAQ — with its heavy emphasis on tech stocks — would perform best, followed by the S&P 500 at 34 percent. The economists thought there was just a 21 percent chance that 10-year U.S Treasury bonds, traditionally a safe haven in an environment of uncertainty and low corporate earnings, would provide the highest rate of return by the end of 2020.
Overall, the economists in our survey think the economy has a long way to go before it returns to normal. Much of its path from here will hinge on the state of the virus itself, with additional emphasis on the government’s response. But the panel also sees many of the stranger features of this particular recession continuing to some degree — from the stock market’s disconnect with the rest of the economy to the extraordinary levels of personal savings by Americans. And of course, the error bars around the forecasts remain wide — as befits one of the most unpredictable economic moments in recent history.
How reports of a promising COVID-19 treatment was found to be fraudulent


The Republican Choice

In 1978 , Republican party chairman Bill Brock invited Jesse Jackson to talk to party notables in Washington , D.C. An intimate of King ’ s , Jackson was a political whirlwind who had proved to be a dynamic civil rights organizer .
“ He is one of the few militant blacks who is preaching racial reconciliation , ” New York Times reporter John Herbers had written of Jackson in 1969 .
His address trafficked in the language of incremental advantage so beloved by electorally avaricious political strategists .
Seven million unregistered Black voters were waiting to be wooed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Republican Party needs black people if it is to ever compete for national office — or , in fact , to keep it from becoming an extinct party.
” The New York Times wrote that “ Jackson ’ s proposition seems realistic enough ” given that “ thirty percent of Northern and 20 percent of Southern blacks already consider themselves independents.
” Jackson got a standing ovation from the crowd , and the good feelings of the day prompted Brock to say that the “ right ” 1980 presidential candidate “ could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent of the Black vote.
” Reagan would go on to win only 14 percent .
For a fleeting political moment in the wreckage of Watergate , the GOP seemed to be open ( once again ) to the idea that their future could lie with voters of color .
The conventional wisdom of that brief period , Perlstein told me in an email , “ was that the Republicans would go the way of the Whigs unless they recouped their appeal to blacks.
” ( Perlstein has a forthcoming book that covers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” it ’ s the latest volume in his multipart history of modern American conservatism . )
In the late 1970s , Jackson made the argument that Black voters should want the two parties to compete for their votes to attain greater political leverage .
He worried that the Democratic Party would come to take Black voters for granted .
( More than 40 years later , presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden would tell a Black radio host , “ I tell you what , if you have a problem figuring out whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , then you ain ’ t Black.
” ) Jackson ’ s own personal conservatism could be seen as emblematic of that of Black Americans , ones who could be potentially courted by the GOP .
A 1979 profile of Jackson by the journalist Paul Cowan described him at an anti-abortion rally : “ [ He ] denounced abortion as ‘ murder , ’ he insisted that ‘ when prayers leave the schools the guns come in ’ … he suggested that , while he supported women ’ s liberation , his wife @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — his home.
” But the good vibes after Jackson ’ s speech in 1978 did not last long .
Republican bureaucrats in the Reagan era coalesced around the idea that minority voters were unwinnable .
A few months before Jackson ’ s speech in Washington , President Carter had introduced electoral reforms — an end to the Electoral College and same-day universal voter registration — that were met with praise from Brock , the RNC chair .
But an essay that soon appeared in the conservative publication Human Events expressed an opposing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Phillips said that Carter ’ s proposal “ could blow the Republican Party sky-high ” given that most of the new voters in a higher-turnout election would be Democratic .
Phillips , who worked for Nixon ’ s 1968 campaign , was the author of the 1969 book “ The Emerging Republican Majority , ” which articulated a road map for the GOP to sweep up white voters .
Or as a 1970 New York Times profile of the Bronx native with “ a visage that looked half scholar and half black-Irishman ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the party that can cohesively hold together the largest number of ethnic prejudices , a circumstance which at last favors the Republicans.
” Phillips was one of many loud , young voices on the “ New Right ” that saw Reagan as the Republican future .
Reagan said the Carter proposal might as well be called “ The Universal Voter Fraud Bill , ” and pressured Brock into reneging on his support for it , which he did .
( Google NGram mentions of the term “ voter fraud ” spike starting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
Brock ’ s flip-flop embodies a contradiction inherent in many of the internal GOP struggles of the past few decades , and ones that continue today : Should the party invest in appeals to new voters or pluck racism ’ s low-hanging electoral fruit ?
Brock availed himself of the latter in his 1970 Tennessee Senate race .
His “ victory could be credited almost entirely to his sophisticated attempts to play on Tennessean ’ s [ sic ] racial fears and animosities , ” according to the Almanac of American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attempted to play both strategies , though the racial one usually seems to blot out the more ecumenical approach .
By the time Reagan appeared at a 1980 campaign stop at the National Urban League , the prominent civil rights organization , his appearance wasn ’ t to win over Black voters so much as to “ show moderates and liberals that Reagan wasn ’ t anti-black , ” one aide later said .
In 2005 , RNC chair Ken Mehlman appeared at the NAACP national convention to formally apologize for the GOP @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republicans gave up on winning the African American vote , looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization .
I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.
” It seemed an act befitting a party whose sitting president , George W. Bush , had run for office as a “ compassionate conservative.
” The branding was no accident .
In 2018 , Bush articulated why he felt the need to convey a more explicitly empathetic message .
“ I felt compelled to phrase @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ conservative ’ and they think heartless .
And my belief then and now is that the right conservative philosophies are compassionate and help people.
” Rove put it a bit more bluntly when he explained that “ compassionate conservatism ” helped Bush “ indicate that he was different from the previous Republicans.
” It was an extension of Bush ’ s past success with people outside the party ’ s usual base .
When he was governor of Texas , he won more than 50 percent of the Mexican American vote .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
His kids went to a large public high school in Austin that was very Hispanic , ” former adviser Stuart Stevens said .
“ Much of his appeal among Hispanics in Texas was attributed to his personal charm and charisma , ” Geraldo Cadava , a professor of history at Northwestern University , writes of Bush in his book , “ The Hispanic Republican.
” “ He spoke Spanish , ate Mexican sweetbreads in border cities , and for Christmas he made enchiladas and tamales that he , unlike President Ford , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hispanic population in Texas was “ highly entrepreneurial , ” signed up for the military at high rates , and was religious , “ so they tend to have socially traditional values , ” particularly on the abortion issue .
“ What ’ s not to like about that profile if you ’ re a Republican ?
” Bush ’ s platform aimed to be inclusive .
Stevens pointed to the potential of No Child Left Behind as one example , an education program that increased funds for low-income schools , many of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Bush signed the program into law with the support of liberal icon Ted Kennedy — there ’ s a picture of Kennedy standing behind Bush as he puts pen to paper .
Two Black children stand directly behind the president .
“ This is the kind of thing that the current Republican Party would present at a war crimes trial , ” Stevens said of the show of bipartisanship .
These days Stevens , who also served as Mitt Romney ’ s chief strategist during the 2012 presidential campaign , is disillusioned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ book ( his eighth ) all about it , “ It Was All a Lie , ” due out in August .
Progress with new , diverse coalitions could have been possible , Stevens said , but “ you need to have changed the substance.
” But for many in the Black community , the substance boiled down to what Kanye West said during a live 2005 telethon for Hurricane Katrina relief : “ George Bush doesn ’ t care about Black people.
” Despite the compassionate conservatism rhetoric , the GOP of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hostile to Americans of color .
The party deployed a warm and fuzzy message that belied the actions it took on voting rights .
It tried to turn out Hispanic voters while tapping into efficient ways to shut down minority voting under the “ voter fraud ” umbrella .
The abscess that George Romney had warned about not only had re-formed , it had grown .
“ The first stirrings of a new movement to restrict voting came after the 2000 Florida election fiasco , which taught the unfortunate lesson that even small @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in close races , ” Wendy Weiser , head of the Democracy Program at the left-leaning advocacy group the Brennan Center , wrote in 2014 .
As Carol Anderson of Emory University writes in “ One Person , No Vote , ” during the Bush years and beyond , Republicans who were “ respectable members of society leveled the charges [ of voter fraud ] — U.S. senators , attorneys with law degrees from the Ivy League.
” John Ashcroft led a Department of Justice that took up a full-throated rallying cry against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his own skin in the game — Ashcroft lost a 2000 Senate election in Missouri in which Republicans alleged mass voter fraud in Black precincts of St. Louis .
A newspaper investigation later found the claims to be all but nonexistent .
The Bush-era Civil Rights Division had the distinction of filing the first voting-discrimination suit on behalf of white voters in the history of the Voting Rights Act .
Perhaps no figure from the Bush Civil Rights Division emerged who was more controversial and long-lasting than Hans von Spakovsky .
He promoted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Georgia starting in the 1990s , and gained infamy once he landed at the Justice Department for pseudonymously writing a law review paper under the name “ Publius , ” which promoted voter ID laws .
Later , his identity revealed , he refused to recuse himself from a controversial case involving voter ID in Georgia .
The case , which was handled under the auspices of the Voting Rights Act , led career lawyers in the Civil Rights Division to resign and , as journalist Ari Berman writes , “ VRA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2001 to 2005 the DOJ objected to only forty-eight changes out of eighty-one thousand submitted , ten times fewer than during the first four years of the Reagan administration.
” Von Spakovsky has proved a durable advocate for his cause .
Now the head of the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation , he served on Trump ’ s now-disbanded Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity .
The commission was created to investigate whether Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton because of widespread voter fraud .
No evidence for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
When I spoke with von Spakovsky , I asked him if it disturbed him that so-called voter fraud protection efforts disproportionately affect minorities — academic studies in various states have shown this , as has a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office .
He told me my assumption was wrong , and said there were studies on voter ID and election turnout that found ID requirements had had no adverse effect .
He also pointed to the greater number of VRA cases brought by the Bush administration compared with the number @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But Democrats don ’ t see it as quite that simple .
“ Counting up the number of cases isn ’ t really meaningful , ” Justin Levitt , who worked in the Civil Rights Division during Obama ’ s presidency , wrote in an email when I asked him about von Spakovsky ’ s claim .
“ It ’ s a little bit like counting up the number of reps in a workout at the gym to try to figure out who ’ s more physically fit , without asking which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of difficulty .
Or counting up the number of words in a piece to try to figure out which is the best reporting.
” Testing claims about the effect that voter ID laws have on election turnout is tricky .
Findings about their effect have varied from state to state , which likely has to do with the nature of state laws and their voting populations .
But a measure like turnout also doesn ’ t take into account how the laws push some people to go through greater effort to cast a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now a constitutional law scholar at Loyola Marymount University , did an investigation into cases of election fraud that could have been stopped by the use of voter ID , and found , out of about a billion ballots cast , only 31 instances from the period of 2000 to 2014 .
The analysis and its results prompt an obvious question : If fraud is so rare , what ’ s the actual purpose of ID laws ?
Attacks on voter franchise are more broad than voter ID laws , of course .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ center in recent years thanks to events like the controversial 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election .
And last year , an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis found that the closure of polling places across the state had made it more difficult for Black voters to cast their ballots .
In 2005 , after Mehlman ’ s mea culpa to the NAACP , New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote that he found the RNC chair ’ s remarks disingenuous : “ My guess is that Mr. Mehlman ’ s apology was less about starting a stampede @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about softening the party ’ s image in the eyes of moderate white voters.
” For all of Bush ’ s campaign rhetoric about compassionate conservatism and his focus on Hispanic outreach , his Republican Party had remained as devoted as ever to the cause of suppressing the franchise of people of color .
“ If the apology was serious , it would mean the Southern strategy was kaput , ” Herbert wrote .
“ And we know that ’ s not true.
” The loss of the 2012 election prompted a crisis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I was close to RNC chairman Reince Priebus .
He came to me right after the election and was like , ‘ We need to do some soul-searching , ’ ” Henry Barbour , a Mississippi political strategist , told me recently .
Along with four others , he would go on to author what became glibly known as the 2012 Republican autopsy report — officially the “ Growth and Opportunity Project ” — that placed the GOP ’ s institutional problems in stark terms : “ Many minorities wrongly think that Republicans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the country.
” Yet three years after the report ’ s publication , the GOP nominated Donald Trump , an anti-immigrant , race-baiting candidate .
“ How did people abandon deeply held beliefs in four years ?
I think the only conclusion is they don ’ t .
They didn ’ t deeply hold them .
They were just marketing slogans , ” Stuart Stevens said .
“ I feel like the guy working for Bernie Madoff who thought we were beating the market.
” Priebus , who served as Trump ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ respond to my requests to talk about the report he commissioned , and what has happened in the party since .
What has happened is a circling of the wagons around Trump and his race-baiting rhetoric and policies .
Gone are the days of articulated philosophies like “ compassionate conservatism.
” Now , the GOP relies on contrarianism to distinguish itself and stoke good feelings among its core members .
Just look at the ease with which ideologically driven leaders like former House Speaker Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney have been cast aside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ geopolitical foe , ” yet the party is now led by a president who repeatedly heaps praise on his Russian counterpart , Vladimir Putin .
The one thing that the party has stayed true to is its reliance on the politics of race and racism .
While membership in the party wanes and America grows more diverse , the GOP has become practiced at speaking to its core members ’ desire to maintain a white-centric American society .
Trump ’ s appeal relies heavily on attacks against the media and “ PC culture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expression , respectively , of a diversifying country .
Republicans know the bargain they ’ ve made .
A 2007 Vanity Fair profile of Arizona Sen. John McCain during his presidential run speaks to an acute awareness that the short-term strategy of placating a white base would be damaging to the GOP ’ s long-term demographic expansion .
In the story , McCain is asked about the political ramifications of the immigration debate : “ ‘ In the short term , it probably galvanizes our base , ’ he said .
‘ In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Hispanics , you ’ ll pay a heavy price.
’ Then he added , unable to help himself , ‘ By the way , I think the fence is least effective .
But I ’ ll build the goddamned fence if they want it.
’ ” During his 2010 Senate reelection campaign at the height of the Tea Party movement , McCain cut a TV spot meant to annihilate any ambiguity over immigration that he might have expressed during his presidential run .
In the ad , McCain strolls along the U.S.-Mexico @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fence , ” to which a white sheriff responds , “ Senator , you ’ re one of us.
” It is perhaps the least subtle advertisement involving a politician since Bob Dole and Britney Spears appeared in that 2001 Pepsi commercial .
The post-2012 election report urged Republicans to return to what sounded a lot like Bush-era immigration stances and semantics : “ We are not a policy committee , but … we must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform .
If we do not , our Party ’ s appeal will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only.
” The strategist types I spoke with all seemed in agreement on the wisdom of this : “ You grow a party with addition , ” Barbour told me .
“ Politics is ultimately about addition , not subtraction , ” Stevens said .
“ It ’ s completely dumb and destructive for their interests every time you say you ’ re going to target a smaller and smaller pool of voters to win , ” was former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd ’ s take .
Both he and Rove seemed irritated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ misrepresentation of their infamous “ base strategy ” that used issues like same-sex marriage to generate the high turnout of core Republican constituencies , like evangelical voters .
“ You win an election by having enthusiastic turnout in your base , by swiping people from the opposition and doing well among the independents , ” Rove said .
To suggest otherwise was “ ridiculous.
” So , had other Republicans misinterpreted that strategy as an excuse not to go after voters outside the traditional GOP core ?
“ Oh , yeah , absolutely.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ we lost the popular vote in 2000 .
What were we going to do , win again that way ?
” Trump had , I pointed out .
“ Yeah , well , and look , it ’ s happened five times in American history , ” Rove said , reeling off the dates from memory .
I asked whether he was saying it ’ s a fluke of history .
“ Oh , yeah , ” he replied .
So , Trump would need to win the popular vote in order to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , knowing I ’ d pushed a little too close to the present day .
“ Look , stop it , stop it , stop it , ” Rove said .
The conversation ended soon afterward .
Republicans with more immigrant-friendly views remain on the outs in an era when the party has focused on things like a family separation policy at the U.S.-Mexico border .
There are reports that Bush won ’ t vote for Trump in the fall .
It feels as if a breaking point has been reached , given @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and violence following the police killing of George Floyd .
Trump ’ s leadership has been called into question , especially on race : 58 percent of Americans in a recent poll said they disapproved of how Trump was handling race relations in the country .
The number is remarkable , if only for the fact that these days it ’ s difficult to get 58 percent of Americans to agree on anything except perhaps distaste for airline travel and love of Dolly Parton .
As the booming economy crumbled in the midst @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more moderate Republicans ’ support for the president .
As Trump tweeted about “ thugs ” and dispersed peaceful protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets , Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said the move wasn ’ t reflective of “ the America that I know , ” while Bush issued a rare public statement sympathizing with the plight of Black Americans : “ Black people see the repeated violation of their rights without an urgent and adequate response from American institutions.
” The country has taken note , and Trump ’ s poll @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remain consistently below Biden ’ s , sometimes showing the Democrat with a double-digit lead .
But there ’ s no sure thing in American politics these days .
The election itself could be a chaotic , unpredictable enterprise .
The potential for disenfranchisement is very real in the upcoming presidential vote .
The pandemic has given experts real concern that a poorly administered election could see thousands who want to vote essentially denied the right to do so .
With that , seeds of distrust will be sown in the outcome .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ RIGGED ELECTION 2020 : MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES , AND OTHERS .
IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES !
” “ I am most worried in places that have had the lowest levels of mail voting , where the election officials are least prepared , where they don ’ t have the resources and where the rules are also hotly contested .
So , states like Wisconsin , states like Georgia , where the political culture has been voting in person , there have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ access , where the rules need a lot of adjustment in order to have fair access to mail voting , ” Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center told me .
Democrats and Republicans are currently locked in legal battles in various states over the rules that will govern November ’ s election , which could largely take place by mail .
It is a fractured process and the types of cases litigated cover mail ballot deadlines , early voting access , ballot collection , prepaid postage and a host of other issues .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ each side has their own website with clickable maps showing what fight is happening in each state .
“ Across the country we ’ ve seen Democrats under the guise of [ the ] COVID-19 crisis in a wholesale way try to change the election to fit their election agenda items that have existed long before this crisis , ” RNC Chair McDaniel said .
“ We believe that many of the lawsuits they have initiated would destroy the integrity of our elections , so we ’ re fighting back.
” One complication @ @ @ @ @ @ @ validation , which often requires a signature .
Barry Burden of the University of Wisconsin ’ s Elections Research Center told me that young and Black voters tend to experience higher rates of ballot rejection based on that requirement .
“ Young people and minorities are less likely to have a signature on file with the state , ” he said .
Plus , young people might have not developed a good cursive signature , and there might be an implicit bias on the part of poll workers if an African American or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Marc Elias , who got his start as a recount lawyer and is now directing the Democrats ’ broad expanse of election-related litigation , told me that differential rejection rates on ballot signatures “ has always been the silent epidemic of American voting.
” The COVID-19 pandemic just helped make more people aware of it .
Von Spakovsky , for his part , told me that concerns for voting in person were overblown this year .
“ I think you can safely hold an election under these circumstances , ” he said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ places like grocery stores , as well as for a recent election in South Korea .
But not all Republicans share that sentiment .
“ I think our messaging is all wrong , frankly , ” Barbour said .
There are legitimate concerns being expressed by Republicans over a largely vote-by-mail election , he said .
But in the midst of a pandemic , people ’ s fears of infection should be taken into account .
“ Forget the political angle , eligible voters must be able to vote.
” Some Republicans do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ booth , Barbour said .
He recounted his own experience in the 2014 primary race between Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran and Chris McDaniel .
“ There was this runoff — we knew we were probably going to lose if we didn ’ t treat it like a general election , ” he said of the Cochran campaign .
They courted all voters , Black , white , and Democratic .
“ People were furious .
‘ How dare y ’ all ?
’ ” Barbour said of the reaction to the strategy .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Georgia , saying , ‘ We ’ re going to be at these polling places , and if you show up , you ’ re not going to be able to vote.
’ I will say , as a Republican , I was embarrassed.
” “ I kind of got a taste of what it ’ s like to be on the other side , seeing that happen , and I found it offensive and clearly wrong.
” CORRECTION ( June 24 , 7:43 a.m. ) : An earlier version of this article @ @ @ @ @ @ @ president in the Nixon administration .
He was vice president under President Ford .

THE LATE 1970s
“The Republican Party needs black people”
In 1978, Republican party chairman Bill Brock invited Jesse Jackson to talk to party notables in Washington, D.C. An intimate of King’s, Jackson was a political whirlwind who had proved to be a dynamic civil rights organizer. “He is one of the few militant blacks who is preaching racial reconciliation,” New York Times reporter John Herbers had written of Jackson in 1969. His address trafficked in the language of incremental advantage so beloved by electorally avaricious political strategists. Seven million unregistered Black voters were waiting to be wooed by the GOP, Jackson said. “The Republican Party needs black people if it is to ever compete for national office — or, in fact, to keep it from becoming an extinct party.” The New York Times wrote that “Jackson’s proposition seems realistic enough” given that “thirty percent of Northern and 20 percent of Southern blacks already consider themselves independents.”
Jackson got a standing ovation from the crowd, and the good feelings of the day prompted Brock to say that the “right” 1980 presidential candidate “could hope for anywhere from 30 to 40 percent of the Black vote.”
Reagan would go on to win only 14 percent.
For a fleeting political moment in the wreckage of Watergate, the GOP seemed to be open (once again) to the idea that their future could lie with voters of color. The conventional wisdom of that brief period, Perlstein told me in an email, “was that the Republicans would go the way of the Whigs unless they recouped their appeal to blacks.” (Perlstein has a forthcoming book that covers this period. Called “Reaganland,” it’s the latest volume in his multipart history of modern American conservatism.)
In the late 1970s, Jackson made the argument that Black voters should want the two parties to compete for their votes to attain greater political leverage. He worried that the Democratic Party would come to take Black voters for granted. (More than 40 years later, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden would tell a Black radio host, “I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black.”) Jackson’s own personal conservatism could be seen as emblematic of that of Black Americans, ones who could be potentially courted by the GOP. A 1979 profile of Jackson by the journalist Paul Cowan described him at an anti-abortion rally: “[He] denounced abortion as ‘murder,’ he insisted that ‘when prayers leave the schools the guns come in’ … he suggested that, while he supported women’s liberation, his wife at least should stay in her place — his home.”
But the good vibes after Jackson’s speech in 1978 did not last long. Republican bureaucrats in the Reagan era coalesced around the idea that minority voters were unwinnable.
A few months before Jackson’s speech in Washington, President Carter had introduced electoral reforms — an end to the Electoral College and same-day universal voter registration — that were met with praise from Brock, the RNC chair. But an essay that soon appeared in the conservative publication Human Events expressed an opposing view in the party. Writer Kevin Phillips said that Carter’s proposal “could blow the Republican Party sky-high” given that most of the new voters in a higher-turnout election would be Democratic.
Phillips, who worked for Nixon’s 1968 campaign, was the author of the 1969 book “The Emerging Republican Majority,” which articulated a road map for the GOP to sweep up white voters. Or as a 1970 New York Times profile of the Bronx native with “a visage that looked half scholar and half black-Irishman” put it: “Political success goes to the party that can cohesively hold together the largest number of ethnic prejudices, a circumstance which at last favors the Republicans.”
Phillips was one of many loud, young voices on the “New Right” that saw Reagan as the Republican future. Reagan said the Carter proposal might as well be called “The Universal Voter Fraud Bill,” and pressured Brock into reneging on his support for it, which he did. (Google NGram mentions of the term “voter fraud” spike starting in the late 1970s and early 1980s.)
Brock’s flip-flop embodies a contradiction inherent in many of the internal GOP struggles of the past few decades, and ones that continue today: Should the party invest in appeals to new voters or pluck racism’s low-hanging electoral fruit? Brock availed himself of the latter in his 1970 Tennessee Senate race. His “victory could be credited almost entirely to his sophisticated attempts to play on Tennessean’s [sic] racial fears and animosities,” according to the Almanac of American Politics. Often, the party has attempted to play both strategies, though the racial one usually seems to blot out the more ecumenical approach.
By the time Reagan appeared at a 1980 campaign stop at the National Urban League, the prominent civil rights organization, his appearance wasn’t to win over Black voters so much as to “show moderates and liberals that Reagan wasn’t anti-black,” one aide later said.
THE 2000s
Double-talk
In 2005, RNC chair Ken Mehlman appeared at the NAACP national convention to formally apologize for the GOP’s Southern strategy. “Some Republicans gave up on winning the African American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.”
It seemed an act befitting a party whose sitting president, George W. Bush, had run for office as a “compassionate conservative.” The branding was no accident. In 2018, Bush articulated why he felt the need to convey a more explicitly empathetic message. “I felt compelled to phrase it this way, because people hear ‘conservative’ and they think heartless. And my belief then and now is that the right conservative philosophies are compassionate and help people.” Rove put it a bit more bluntly when he explained that “compassionate conservatism” helped Bush “indicate that he was different from the previous Republicans.”
It was an extension of Bush’s past success with people outside the party’s usual base. When he was governor of Texas, he won more than 50 percent of the Mexican American vote. “He was comfortable with Hispanic culture. His kids went to a large public high school in Austin that was very Hispanic,” former adviser Stuart Stevens said. “Much of his appeal among Hispanics in Texas was attributed to his personal charm and charisma,” Geraldo Cadava, a professor of history at Northwestern University, writes of Bush in his book, “The Hispanic Republican.” “He spoke Spanish, ate Mexican sweetbreads in border cities, and for Christmas he made enchiladas and tamales that he, unlike President Ford, shucked before eating.” Rove said the Hispanic population in Texas was “highly entrepreneurial,” signed up for the military at high rates, and was religious, “so they tend to have socially traditional values,” particularly on the abortion issue. “What’s not to like about that profile if you’re a Republican?”
Bush’s platform aimed to be inclusive. Stevens pointed to the potential of No Child Left Behind as one example, an education program that increased funds for low-income schools, many of them home to Black and Hispanic students. Bush signed the program into law with the support of liberal icon Ted Kennedy — there’s a picture of Kennedy standing behind Bush as he puts pen to paper. Two Black children stand directly behind the president. “This is the kind of thing that the current Republican Party would present at a war crimes trial,” Stevens said of the show of bipartisanship. These days Stevens, who also served as Mitt Romney’s chief strategist during the 2012 presidential campaign, is disillusioned with the Republican Party and has a book (his eighth) all about it, “It Was All a Lie,” due out in August.
Progress with new, diverse coalitions could have been possible, Stevens said, but “you need to have changed the substance.”
But for many in the Black community, the substance boiled down to what Kanye West said during a live 2005 telethon for Hurricane Katrina relief: “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.”
Despite the compassionate conservatism rhetoric, the GOP of the Bush era continued to pursue policies hostile to Americans of color. The party deployed a warm and fuzzy message that belied the actions it took on voting rights. It tried to turn out Hispanic voters while tapping into efficient ways to shut down minority voting under the “voter fraud” umbrella. The abscess that George Romney had warned about not only had re-formed, it had grown.
“The first stirrings of a new movement to restrict voting came after the 2000 Florida election fiasco, which taught the unfortunate lesson that even small manipulations of election procedures could affect outcomes in close races,” Wendy Weiser, head of the Democracy Program at the left-leaning advocacy group the Brennan Center, wrote in 2014. As Carol Anderson of Emory University writes in “One Person, No Vote,” during the Bush years and beyond, Republicans who were “respectable members of society leveled the charges [of voter fraud] — U.S. senators, attorneys with law degrees from the Ivy League.”
John Ashcroft led a Department of Justice that took up a full-throated rallying cry against voter fraud. He had some of his own skin in the game — Ashcroft lost a 2000 Senate election in Missouri in which Republicans alleged mass voter fraud in Black precincts of St. Louis. A newspaper investigation later found the claims to be all but nonexistent. The Bush-era Civil Rights Division had the distinction of filing the first voting-discrimination suit on behalf of white voters in the history of the Voting Rights Act.
Perhaps no figure from the Bush Civil Rights Division emerged who was more controversial and long-lasting than Hans von Spakovsky. He promoted voter ID laws in his home state of Georgia starting in the 1990s, and gained infamy once he landed at the Justice Department for pseudonymously writing a law review paper under the name “Publius,” which promoted voter ID laws. Later, his identity revealed, he refused to recuse himself from a controversial case involving voter ID in Georgia. The case, which was handled under the auspices of the Voting Rights Act, led career lawyers in the Civil Rights Division to resign and, as journalist Ari Berman writes, “VRA enforcement came to a standstill. From 2001 to 2005 the DOJ objected to only forty-eight changes out of eighty-one thousand submitted, ten times fewer than during the first four years of the Reagan administration.”
Von Spakovsky has proved a durable advocate for his cause. Now the head of the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation, he served on Trump’s now-disbanded Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. The commission was created to investigate whether Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton because of widespread voter fraud. No evidence for the claim has yet to be produced.
When I spoke with von Spakovsky, I asked him if it disturbed him that so-called voter fraud protection efforts disproportionately affect minorities — academic studies in various states have shown this, as has a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. He told me my assumption was wrong, and said there were studies on voter ID and election turnout that found ID requirements had had no adverse effect. He also pointed to the greater number of VRA cases brought by the Bush administration compared with the number undertaken during the administration of Barack Obama.
But Democrats don’t see it as quite that simple. “Counting up the number of cases isn’t really meaningful,” Justin Levitt, who worked in the Civil Rights Division during Obama’s presidency, wrote in an email when I asked him about von Spakovsky’s claim. “It’s a little bit like counting up the number of reps in a workout at the gym to try to figure out who’s more physically fit, without asking which exercises, which weights, which degree of difficulty. Or counting up the number of words in a piece to try to figure out which is the best reporting.”
Testing claims about the effect that voter ID laws have on election turnout is tricky. Findings about their effect have varied from state to state, which likely has to do with the nature of state laws and their voting populations. But a measure like turnout also doesn’t take into account how the laws push some people to go through greater effort to cast a ballot successfully.
Levitt, who is now a constitutional law scholar at Loyola Marymount University, did an investigation into cases of election fraud that could have been stopped by the use of voter ID, and found, out of about a billion ballots cast, only 31 instances from the period of 2000 to 2014. The analysis and its results prompt an obvious question: If fraud is so rare, what’s the actual purpose of ID laws?
Attacks on voter franchise are more broad than voter ID laws, of course. Voter roll purges have moved front and center in recent years thanks to events like the controversial 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election. And last year, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis found that the closure of polling places across the state had made it more difficult for Black voters to cast their ballots.
In 2005, after Mehlman’s mea culpa to the NAACP, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote that he found the RNC chair’s remarks disingenuous: “My guess is that Mr. Mehlman’s apology was less about starting a stampede of blacks into the G.O.P. than about softening the party’s image in the eyes of moderate white voters.” For all of Bush’s campaign rhetoric about compassionate conservatism and his focus on Hispanic outreach, his Republican Party had remained as devoted as ever to the cause of suppressing the franchise of people of color.
“If the apology was serious, it would mean the Southern strategy was kaput,” Herbert wrote. “And we know that’s not true.”


fivethirthyeight--2020-06-24--What To Look For In A Face Mask, According To Science

In a matter of weeks , face masks went from being considered unnecessary , and possibly harmful , to mandatory in many places across the U.S. You ’ re forgiven if you ’ ve got a bit of whiplash .
Currently , the scientific consensus is that face masks are at least somewhat effective at preventing the spread of COVID-19 , and both the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend wearing a cloth face covering .
But which mask should you choose ?
Is the hand-stitched one your father-in-law made just as good as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ retailer ?
Are disposable surgical masks just as good ?
How many layers of fabric should it have ?
To help you wade through the mountain of options , we ’ ve taken a look at the ( admittedly limited ) science available and spoken to experts to create a science-backed guide to mask shopping .
Do I need to wear a mask ?
Unless you ’ re under the age of 2 , have a specific medical condition that makes it hard for you to wear a mask , or are able @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people at all times ( hello , hermits ! )
, you should wear a mask whenever you leave your house , according to current recommendations from the CDC , WHO and public health experts .
And it may be a requirement in your city or state .
What does a mask do ?
We now know that the main way the novel coronavirus is spread is through respiratory droplets : tiny bits of spit and other materials that are expelled from your mouth and nose when you sneeze , cough , talk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ carrying the virus , it can hitch a ride on these droplets and spread to surfaces or to other people — entering their nose or mouth and causing infection .
A mask can physically block these droplets from travelling further than your face .
While they can also provide some protection against COVID-19 , there are lots of ways to come into contact with infectious droplets ( touching a surface where droplets have landed , or having droplets land on your eyes or skin ) , but fewer ways of spreading droplets ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) .
Because of this , masks do a much better job at preventing an infectious person from spreading the disease than they do of protecting a healthy person from catching it .
Wearing a mask is about not spreading the virus yourself rather than providing protection for you .
“ You wear one to protect me and I wear one to protect you , ” said Dr. Scott Segal , an anesthesiologist at Wake Forest Baptist Health in North Carolina who has run lab tests of face mask materials .
Should I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tests , disposable surgical masks perform well for both breathability and blocking respiratory droplets .
Depending on the material , both kinds of masks can be equally effective and safe .
But disposable masks are really only designed to be worn once then thrown away ( they start to break down and become less effective after wearing ) , which isn ’ t great from an environmental perspective .
Already , piles of single use personal protective equipment have been washing up on shorelines .
If a disposable mask is the only option @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , washable mask is a better long-term solution .
What material is best for a reusable face mask ?
A lot of scientists have been trying to figure this out , and the answer isn ’ t exactly straightforward ( is anything straightforward when it comes to COVID ? )
.
Different researchers have set up devices that spray tiny droplets at fabric and then measured how much of it comes through the other side , while also measuring air flow to determine breathability .
What they ’ ve found is that it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fabric — cotton , linen , silk — and more about the quality of fabric , according to Segal .
Higher quality fabrics have a tighter weave and thicker thread that do a better job of blocking droplets from passing through .
But you also want the fabric to be breathable , according to Taher Saif , a mechanical engineer at the University of Illinois who has been researching face mask material .
Saif said if breath can ’ t get through the mask , it will find another way out , allowing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you take aluminum foil and make a mask out of it , ” Saif said .
“ All the air will be forced out the sides .
If you sneeze or cough , the majority of the droplets will escape out the side and you lose the point of the mask.
” So you should be able to comfortably breathe through the mask .
But measuring exactly how effective a specific fabric is at blocking droplets requires a lab , and just because one lab finds a mask made from a 100 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t mean the cotton T-shirt you have in your drawer is the same material .
In lieu of more precise measurements , Segal offered a rule of thumb : hold the material up to a bright light .
“ Look at the light coming through the fabric , ” Segal said .
“ If it outlines individual fibers and you can see the light through fabric , it ’ s probably not as effective .
The less of that you can see , the better the filter.
” How many layers is best @ @ @ @ @ @ @ published or prepublished so far , two layers do a better job than one , and three layers do a better job than two .
Take a look at these two videos from Saif ’ s study , comparing the same T-shirt material in one layer versus two : In its guidelines , the WHO recommends a minimum of three layers , and many major manufacturers seem to be using this as a rule of thumb .
So why not go four layers ?
You could , but remember you don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) .
Still , choosing a mask with more layers will generally add more protection .
Thread count refers to the number of threads per square inch of fabric , but more isn ’ t necessarily better , according to Segal .
“ Satin sheets have super high thread count but you can hardly breathe through them because it ’ s so tight , ” Segal said .
“ That may have to do not just with thread count but also tightness of weave.
” The most effective masks are ones that cover @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a somewhat snug seal at the edges of the mask .
Without a professional grade mask like an N95 respirator , you ’ re not going to get an airtight seal , but that ’ s okay — we ’ re aiming for good enough , not perfect .
For everyday use , the experts I spoke to said a comfortable but snug mask does the trick .
The efficacy of the mask has more to do with the material than whether it was made in a factory or at your kitchen table @ @ @ @ @ @ @ masks have performed well in lab tests , especially when made with multiple layers .
Check out the material and choose ( or make ) the mask you find most comfortable and will be likely to wear .
What about those exhalation vents ?
Exhalation vents were designed for masks that serve a very different purpose than the ones we should be wearing now .
Those masks are meant to prevent the wearer from inhaling particles , not to block them from exhaling particles , so the vents make it easier to breathe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ getting in .
With COVID-19 , masks are meant to block your respiratory particles from getting out , not to block other things from getting in , so an exhalation vent defeats the purpose of the mask .
What if I pick the wrong one ?
At the end of the day , many experts also say that any face covering is better than no face covering .
Do your best to find a mask that is breathable and that you don ’ t mind wearing , and you should be in good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Saif held up a Kleenex during our video interview and said : “ Even this would be better than nothing .
”

In a matter of weeks, face masks went from being considered unnecessary, and possibly harmful, to mandatory in many places across the U.S. You’re forgiven if you’ve got a bit of whiplash.
Currently, the scientific consensus is that face masks are at least somewhat effective at preventing the spread of COVID-19, and both the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend wearing a cloth face covering. But which mask should you choose? Is the hand-stitched one your father-in-law made just as good as the one produced by your favorite fashion retailer? Are disposable surgical masks just as good? How many layers of fabric should it have?
To help you wade through the mountain of options, we’ve taken a look at the (admittedly limited) science available and spoken to experts to create a science-backed guide to mask shopping.
Do I need to wear a mask?
Unless you’re under the age of 2, have a specific medical condition that makes it hard for you to wear a mask, or are able to keep six feet away from other people at all times (hello, hermits!), you should wear a mask whenever you leave your house, according to current recommendations from the CDC, WHO and public health experts. And it may be a requirement in your city or state.
What does a mask do?
We now know that the main way the novel coronavirus is spread is through respiratory droplets: tiny bits of spit and other materials that are expelled from your mouth and nose when you sneeze, cough, talk or breathe. If you’re carrying the virus, it can hitch a ride on these droplets and spread to surfaces or to other people — entering their nose or mouth and causing infection. A mask can physically block these droplets from travelling further than your face. While they can also provide some protection against COVID-19, there are lots of ways to come into contact with infectious droplets (touching a surface where droplets have landed, or having droplets land on your eyes or skin), but fewer ways of spreading droplets (likely only through your mouth and nose). Because of this, masks do a much better job at preventing an infectious person from spreading the disease than they do of protecting a healthy person from catching it. Wearing a mask is about not spreading the virus yourself rather than providing protection for you.
“You wear one to protect me and I wear one to protect you,” said Dr. Scott Segal, an anesthesiologist at Wake Forest Baptist Health in North Carolina who has run lab tests of face mask materials.
Should I go disposable or reusable?
In lab tests, disposable surgical masks perform well for both breathability and blocking respiratory droplets. Depending on the material, both kinds of masks can be equally effective and safe. But disposable masks are really only designed to be worn once then thrown away (they start to break down and become less effective after wearing), which isn’t great from an environmental perspective. Already, piles of single use personal protective equipment have been washing up on shorelines. If a disposable mask is the only option, wear it, but a reusable, washable mask is a better long-term solution.
What material is best for a reusable face mask?
A lot of scientists have been trying to figure this out, and the answer isn’t exactly straightforward (is anything straightforward when it comes to COVID?). Different researchers have set up devices that spray tiny droplets at fabric and then measured how much of it comes through the other side, while also measuring air flow to determine breathability. What they’ve found is that it’s less about the type of fabric — cotton, linen, silk — and more about the quality of fabric, according to Segal. Higher quality fabrics have a tighter weave and thicker thread that do a better job of blocking droplets from passing through.
But you also want the fabric to be breathable, according to Taher Saif, a mechanical engineer at the University of Illinois who has been researching face mask material. Saif said if breath can’t get through the mask, it will find another way out, allowing respiratory droplets to spread.
“Imagine you take aluminum foil and make a mask out of it,” Saif said. “All the air will be forced out the sides. If you sneeze or cough, the majority of the droplets will escape out the side and you lose the point of the mask.”
Subscribe to our coronavirus podcast, PODCAST-19
So you should be able to comfortably breathe through the mask. But measuring exactly how effective a specific fabric is at blocking droplets requires a lab, and just because one lab finds a mask made from a 100 percent cotton T-shirt to be effective doesn’t mean the cotton T-shirt you have in your drawer is the same material. In lieu of more precise measurements, Segal offered a rule of thumb: hold the material up to a bright light.
“Look at the light coming through the fabric,” Segal said. “If it outlines individual fibers and you can see the light through fabric, it’s probably not as effective. The less of that you can see, the better the filter.”
How many layers is best?
According to research that has been published or prepublished so far, two layers do a better job than one, and three layers do a better job than two. Take a look at these two videos from Saif’s study, comparing the same T-shirt material in one layer versus two:
In its guidelines, the WHO recommends a minimum of three layers, and many major manufacturers seem to be using this as a rule of thumb. So why not go four layers? You could, but remember you don’t want to sacrifice breathability (see above). Still, choosing a mask with more layers will generally add more protection.
Does thread count matter?
Thread count refers to the number of threads per square inch of fabric, but more isn’t necessarily better, according to Segal.
“Satin sheets have super high thread count but you can hardly breathe through them because it’s so tight,” Segal said. “That may have to do not just with thread count but also tightness of weave.”
What style should I buy?
The most effective masks are ones that cover both your nose and mouth and form a somewhat snug seal at the edges of the mask. Without a professional grade mask like an N95 respirator, you’re not going to get an airtight seal, but that’s okay — we’re aiming for good enough, not perfect. For everyday use, the experts I spoke to said a comfortable but snug mask does the trick.
Should I buy handmade or mass produced?
The efficacy of the mask has more to do with the material than whether it was made in a factory or at your kitchen table. Even homemade, no-sew, T-shirt masks have performed well in lab tests, especially when made with multiple layers. Check out the material and choose (or make) the mask you find most comfortable and will be likely to wear.
What about those exhalation vents?
Exhalation vents were designed for masks that serve a very different purpose than the ones we should be wearing now. Those masks are meant to prevent the wearer from inhaling particles, not to block them from exhaling particles, so the vents make it easier to breathe while still stopping the bad stuff from getting in. With COVID-19, masks are meant to block your respiratory particles from getting out, not to block other things from getting in, so an exhalation vent defeats the purpose of the mask.
What if I pick the wrong one?
At the end of the day, many experts also say that any face covering is better than no face covering. Do your best to find a mask that is breathable and that you don’t mind wearing, and you should be in good shape.
To drive the point home, Saif held up a Kleenex during our video interview and said: “Even this would be better than nothing.”
How reports of a promising COVID-19 treatment was found to be fraudulent


fivethirthyeight--2020-06-24--60 Games Aren’t Enough To Crown The Best MLB Team. But Neither Are 162 Games.

After a long , painful , drawn-out negotiating process that never actually yielded a new agreement between owners and players , it looks like Major League Baseball is going to happen in 2020 regardless .
The regular season will be 60 games , starting around July 24 and lasting a little over two months , with a standard October postseason .
Needless to say , it will be a season unlike any other in modern MLB history : Major league teams haven ’ t played a 60-game schedule since 1878 .
But does that mean it will give us a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Maybe — although it ’ s not like a 162-game schedule delivers as much of an ironclad champ as we might think , either .
To test how often the best team wins under different schedule lengths , I set up a simulation using our Elo ratings , which estimate each team ’ s strength at any given moment .
In the spirit of this classic piece of NFL research by Doug Drinen , I assigned each team a random Elo drawn from the actual distribution of real-life MLB ratings during the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1,000 times , tracking how often the true best team — i.e.
, the one with the best underlying rating — made the playoffs and won the World Series .
In a 60-game season , with 40 games against division rivals and 20 against teams from the same division in the other league , the best team in baseball won the World Series just 145 times in 1,000 simulations , or about 15 percent of the time .
It made the Fall Classic in only 23 percent of our simulations and made the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the time .
The eventual champion ’ s average leaguewide talent ranking under a 60-game schedule was 7.1 — meaning the format usually yielded a solid top-10 team as champ but not one necessarily much better than that .
That sounds pretty asterisk-worthy .
But how different would a regular 162-game schedule be ?
Using last year ’ s slate for reference , I ran another 1,000 simulations with the same methodology over a full-length season .
In those results , the best team in baseball won the World Series 217 times @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time .
MLB ’ s top-rated ballclub made the World Series about 32 percent of the time , and it made the playoffs over 96 percent of the time .
( The average champion ’ s talent ranking in a 162-game season was 5.2 . )
Those are all improvements — though maybe not quite as much as we might expect from nearly tripling the sample size of the regular season .
One reason 162 games didn ’ t provide a larger boost in certainty over 60 games is that a baseball team @ @ @ @ @ @ @ season actually do give us a lot of information .
When Eno Sarris of The Athletic looked into how a team ’ s to-date winning percentage correlates to either its rest-of-season or eventual end-of-season winning percentage , he found that the correlation rises sharply over the first 60 games before slowing down from that point onward .
It ’ s not as though no information is gleaned from games 61 through 162 , but the pace of knowledge gained per game is a lot slower .
This essentially matches up with my own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the great Tom Tango ) comparing schedule lengths across sports .
In MLB , the point in the schedule when a team ’ s record is half-skill and half-luck is around 67 games , implying that randomness overshadows talent up to that moment of the season .
Whether by intent or ( more likely ) coincidence , MLB ’ s plan for the shortened 2020 schedule will at least give us the games that provide the most new information .
Of course , a 162-game schedule would have been preferable ( for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my simulations above , the top seven teams in Elo talent collectively win the World Series about 14 percentage points less frequently under a 60-game slate than a 162-game one .
This means teams ranked eighth through 30th win 14 percentage points more frequently under a shortened campaign , with the bulk of those gains coming for teams No .
8 through No .
15 .
Cinderella stories will be a lot more likely under this season ’ s setup , if you like that kind of thing .
Another interesting note : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the best team across the two schedule lengths is driven both by how often they make the postseason and how well they do once there .
Conditional on actually getting into the playoffs , the championship probability for the best team is roughly 23 percent under the traditional setup and 18 percent under the new one — this despite the playoff format staying exactly the same as usual in 2020 after the players ’ union rejected a league proposal that would have included a 16-team expanded postseason .
And in our pairs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shortened — the same team won the championship just 9 percent of the time .
So the shortened schedule will almost certainly change the course of baseball history .
Whomever the true best team of 2020 is — whether it be the Dodgers , Yankees , Astros , Nationals or someone else — one big disadvantage will come in reduced playoff odds over the shortened regular season .
( Essentially , the stretch run starts on opening day . )
And once we ’ re in the postseason , it will be the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was true under the usual system , but it might be even more true in this deeply strange 2020 mini-season .

After a long, painful, drawn-out negotiating process that never actually yielded a new agreement between owners and players, it looks like Major League Baseball is going to happen in 2020 regardless. The regular season will be 60 games, starting around July 24 and lasting a little over two months, with a standard October postseason.
Needless to say, it will be a season unlike any other in modern MLB history: Major league teams haven’t played a 60-game schedule since 1878. But does that mean it will give us a fluke champion, worthy of an asterisk? Maybe — although it’s not like a 162-game schedule delivers as much of an ironclad champ as we might think, either.
[Related: Do Baseball’s Labor Fights Drive Fans Away?]
To test how often the best team wins under different schedule lengths, I set up a simulation using our Elo ratings, which estimate each team’s strength at any given moment. In the spirit of this classic piece of NFL research by Doug Drinen, I assigned each team a random Elo drawn from the actual distribution of real-life MLB ratings during the 2010s. Then I simulated the season 1,000 times, tracking how often the true best team — i.e., the one with the best underlying rating — made the playoffs and won the World Series.
In a 60-game season, with 40 games against division rivals and 20 against teams from the same division in the other league, the best team in baseball won the World Series just 145 times in 1,000 simulations, or about 15 percent of the time. It made the Fall Classic in only 23 percent of our simulations and made the playoffs, period, just 82 percent of the time. The eventual champion’s average leaguewide talent ranking under a 60-game schedule was 7.1 — meaning the format usually yielded a solid top-10 team as champ but not one necessarily much better than that.
[Related: Does A Short-Season MLB Champ Deserve An Asterisk?]
That sounds pretty asterisk-worthy. But how different would a regular 162-game schedule be? Using last year’s slate for reference, I ran another 1,000 simulations with the same methodology over a full-length season. In those results, the best team in baseball won the World Series 217 times, or basically 22 percent of the time. MLB’s top-rated ballclub made the World Series about 32 percent of the time, and it made the playoffs over 96 percent of the time. (The average champion’s talent ranking in a 162-game season was 5.2.) Those are all improvements — though maybe not quite as much as we might expect from nearly tripling the sample size of the regular season.
One reason 162 games didn’t provide a larger boost in certainty over 60 games is that a baseball team’s first 60 games in a season actually do give us a lot of information. When Eno Sarris of The Athletic looked into how a team’s to-date winning percentage correlates to either its rest-of-season or eventual end-of-season winning percentage, he found that the correlation rises sharply over the first 60 games before slowing down from that point onward. It’s not as though no information is gleaned from games 61 through 162, but the pace of knowledge gained per game is a lot slower.
This essentially matches up with my own research (itself based on the work of the great Tom Tango) comparing schedule lengths across sports. In MLB, the point in the schedule when a team’s record is half-skill and half-luck is around 67 games, implying that randomness overshadows talent up to that moment of the season. Whether by intent or (more likely) coincidence, MLB’s plan for the shortened 2020 schedule will at least give us the games that provide the most new information.
[Related: How Much Money Do MLB Players Really Make?]
Of course, a 162-game schedule would have been preferable (for many obvious reasons). According to my simulations above, the top seven teams in Elo talent collectively win the World Series about 14 percentage points less frequently under a 60-game slate than a 162-game one. This means teams ranked eighth through 30th win 14 percentage points more frequently under a shortened campaign, with the bulk of those gains coming for teams No. 8 through No. 15. Cinderella stories will be a lot more likely under this season’s setup, if you like that kind of thing.
Subscribe to our sports podcast, Hot Takedown
Another interesting note: The difference in expected World Series odds for the best team across the two schedule lengths is driven both by how often they make the postseason and how well they do once there. Conditional on actually getting into the playoffs, the championship probability for the best team is roughly 23 percent under the traditional setup and 18 percent under the new one — this despite the playoff format staying exactly the same as usual in 2020 after the players’ union rejected a league proposal that would have included a 16-team expanded postseason. And in our pairs of seasons — one full-length and one shortened — the same team won the championship just 9 percent of the time.
[Related: Sammy Sosa And Mark McGwire, Welcome To Our Hall Of Pretty Damn Good Players]
So the shortened schedule will almost certainly change the course of baseball history. Whoever the true best team of 2020 is — whether it be the Dodgers, Yankees, Astros, Nationals or someone else — one big disadvantage will come in reduced playoff odds over the shortened regular season. (Essentially, the stretch run starts on opening day.) And once we’re in the postseason, it will be the same old crapshoot as always. That was true under the usual system, but it might be even more true in this deeply strange 2020 mini-season.
How reports of a promising COVID-19 treatment was found to be fraudulent