remember when iowa rescinded their mask mandate two weeks ago? if this is correct (not showing on the NYT tracker yet), that action undid 2 months of progress www.npr.org/sections/…

@whlteXbread hmmm, looks like iowa decided to change their reporting method, causing an artificial spike. so those numbers weren’t correct. the timing sure is fishy github.com/CSSEGISan...

@whlteXbread fwiw, NPR added a disclaimer about the “data irregularity” after i posted my tweet yesterday 😞. still, the timing feels really sus. NYT has somehow updated their numbers and are not reporting a giant spike.

@whlteXbread a short news story on the change—“health leaders say it’s how they track other diseases, like the flu”…have you ever taken an at-home flu test? 🤔 ktiv.com/2021/02/1...

@whlteXbread okay, digging into this some more, i can understand why they’d want to move away from their previous method of reporting www.msn.com/en-us/mon...

@whlteXbread looks like this is a nothingburger—a combination of changing reporting methods and adding 2.4 million test results to their data in order to facilitate that methodology change. we’ll have to wait a little longer to see any changes after rescinding the mask mandate.