ClaimsNate Silver

“Meanwhile, Italy has increased testing quite a lot over the past several days”

Nate Silver, on X 28 March 2020 Post by @NateSilver538 on X, 2020-03-28 (X)

Factual Biosecurity

Italy has increased coronavirus testing considerably over the past several days as of 2020-03-28.

Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

What would count as true or false

Compare Italy's daily COVID-19 tests (tamponi) in roughly the 5–7 days before 2020-03-28 with the period just before that, using data available as of 2020-03-28. True: daily tests rose substantially over those days, for example a rolling daily average about 25% or more above the prior comparable period, or a clear sustained rise to new highs. Mostly true: testing clearly rose, but the increase was modest (roughly 10–25%) or uneven, so 'quite a lot' overstates it slightly. Mixed: testing rose on some days and fell or held flat on others, with no clear net trend. Mostly false: testing was roughly flat (less than about 10% change) and only a day or two of higher counts supports the claim. False: daily testing held steady or fell over that period.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (7)

  1. E1 Coronavirus: 3.651 positivi, 889 morti. Record di guariti: sono 1.434. Bando per 500 infermieri: hanno risposto quasi in 10 mila La Repubblica · 28 March 2020

    “Il numero di tamponi eseguiti è salito a 429.526 (+35.447).”

  2. E2 Coronavirus: 3.651 positivi, 889 morti. Record di guariti: sono 1.434. Bando per 500 infermieri: hanno risposto quasi in 10 mila La Repubblica · 28 March 2020

    “"siamo arrivati a circa 429 mila, è l'8% in più di ieri", secondo una strategia di analisi pilotata dall'Istituto superiore di sanità"”

  3. E3 Documentation for COVID-19 Testing Data in Italy pitmonticone (GitHub Pages; third-party documentation of the Italian DPC testing data, used for Our World in Data) · 10 May 2020

    “There have been significant changes over time in the ministerial testing protocol. (high confidence | ISS, MTP27-02, MTP09-03, MTP03-04, AXV)”

  4. E4 Epidemiology of Coronavirus Disease Outbreak: The Italian Trends Reviews on Recent Clinical Trials (Bentham Science), 2020, Vol. 15, No. 2 · 2020

    “Swabs: number of coronavirus tests performed”

  5. E5 Table S1. PubMed Central (PMC), NCBI

    “| 21-Mar | 6557 | 793 | 26336 | | 22-Mar | 5560 | 651 | 25180 | | 23-Mar | 4790 | 601 | 17066 | | 24-Mar | 5249 | 743 | 21496 | | 25-Mar | 5210 | 683 | 27481 | | 26-Mar | 6153 | 712 | 36615 | | 27-Mar | 5909 | 919 | 33019 |”

  6. E6 Table S1. PubMed Central (PMC), NCBI

    “| 14-Mar | 3497 | 175 | 11682 | | 15-Mar | 3590 | 368 | 15729 | | 16-Mar | 3385 | 349 | 13063 | | 17-Mar | 3374 | 345 | 10695 | | 18-Mar | 4207 | 475 | 16884 | | 19-Mar | 5322 | 427 | 17236 | | 20-Mar | 5986 | 627 | 24109 |”

  7. E7 Coronavirus, crescono i tamponi: cala la percentuale di positivi - Reggiosera Reggiosera · 28 March 2020

    “A partire dal 19 marzo abbiamo un’impennata netta che porta il totale dei tamponi a 47.798 al 27 marzo”

Reasoning

E1 gives one labelled national figure: on 28 March, 35,447 new tests brought the cumulative total to 429,526. E2 says the cumulative total rose about 8% from the day before. Both describe a single day, not a trend over 5–7 days compared with the period before. The daily rows in E7/E8 have no column labels in the quoted text, so they cannot show what the numbers measure. E9 gives a total of 47,798 tests by 27 March but does not show that this is a national figure. The evidence does not settle the multi-day national comparison the criteria require.

Cite this claim

Nate Silver, “Italy has increased coronavirus testing considerably over the past several days as of 2020-03-28.” (said 28 March 2020). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_f7e18149e8c6, method 0.1.0+28da144b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_f7e18149e8c6

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

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