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This issue: Booster predictions compared, plus scoring last week's CPI forecasts.​

Thanks again to all the new signups. Nonrival is brand new and a one-person side project, so apologies if there are any bugs in this first results email. Send feedback to: newsletter@nonrival.pub​

So much for peak inflation...

Last week, in the first ever Nonrival email, we asked whether August numbers would show that inflation had peaked. They didn't. The CPI rose 0.1% month over month, while the core CPI (which excludes prices for energy and food) was up 0.6%. Brookings has five key takeaways from the report. And we can now score our first-ever forecast.

We asked what the likelihood was that the CPI would rise in August, month over month. The average forecast among readers was 34%, meaning the group on average thought there was only about a one-in-three chance of a month-over-month rise. Since the CPI did rise, higher forecasts score better.

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(You didn't make a prediction that week or else you'd see your personalized forecasting results here.)

Will Americans get boosted?

This week, Nonrival asked whether Americans would get the new bivalent boosters. Specifically, we asked: How likely is it that the US administers more than 20 million doses of Covid vaccine in September?

(You didn't make a prediction this week. Otherwise you'd be seeing your forecast here.)

What other readers said

The average reader forecast was 24%.

Perspectives on boosters

Here are some readers' justifications for their booster forecasts...

The case that the US could reach 20 million does in September...

If over 40% of people in the US end up getting a flu shot during peak flu season, it seems likely that the draw of a covid booster before winter is strong enough to imagine almost 10% adoption per fall month - especially if companies and insurance push it. (65%)
A new vaccine available to all ages at once means greater numbers than usual will jump in. (60%)

And the case that it's unlikely...

Last year the booster rollout roughly doubled doses. If things doubled now that’d be 10M. I could see this going as high as 15M, but with urgency low, lots of people feeling protected by Omicron infections, and less public push, 20M in the first month seems unlikely. (22%)
Based on the past few months' of data, the uptake of the boosters, the low level of covid news, it strikes me as highly unlikely that we'll see high degrees of vaccination this month. (5%)
20m would require a ~4x-ing from August numbers. I don't think there is anywhere near the underlying demand for that to happen. Throw the relative lack of safety data on top and I think you have a recipe for modest increase from August (2%)

Don't make me tweet...

The standard playbook for growing a newsletter is:

  1. Spend all day on Twitter posting 🔥takes
  2. Get a bunch of followers
  3. Hope that 2% of them sign up for your newsletter

I really don't want to do this. In large part this newsletter is a reaction to how platforms like Twitter work and what they reward.

So do me a favor: Forward this email to one thoughtful friend who you think might want to try it. They can sign up at nonrival.pub​

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Nonrival

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