NPR reported the results of a survey that correlated COVID death rates in thousands of counties by political affiliations. The counties carried by Trump in 2020 had higher COVID death rates than those that went for Biden.
This is not surprising since so many Republican elected officials—local, state, and national—have opposed mask mandates and vaccination mandates while supporting quack remedies.
Since May 2021, people living in counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump during the last presidential election have been nearly three times as likely to die from COVID-19 as those who live in areas that went for now-President Biden. That’s according to a new analysis by NPR that examines how political polarization and misinformation are driving a significant share of the deaths in the pandemic…
NPR looked at deaths per 100,000 people in roughly 3,000 counties across the U.S. from May 2021, the point at which vaccinations widely became available. People living in counties that went 60% or higher for Trump in November 2020 had 2.7 times the death rates of those that went for Biden. Counties with an even higher share of the vote for Trump saw higher COVID-19 mortality rates.
In October, the reddest tenth of the country saw death rates that were six times higher than the bluest tenth, according to Charles Gaba, an independent health care analyst who’s beentracking partisanship trends during the pandemicand helped to review NPR’s methodology. Those numbers have dropped slightly in recent weeks, Gaba says: “It’s back down to around 5.5 times higher.”
The trend was robust, even when controlling for age, which is the primary demographic risk of COVID-19 mortality. The data also reveal a major contributing factor to the death rate difference: The higher the vote share for Trump, the lower the vaccination rate….the rate of Republican vaccination against COVID-19 has flatlined at just 59%, according to the latest numbers from Kaiser. By comparison, 91% of Democrats are vaccinated….
Being unvaccinated increases the risk of death from COVID-19 dramatically, according to the CDC. The vast majority of deaths since May, around 150,000, have occurred among the unvaccinated, says Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post amplified these findings in his report that COVID death rates are lower in the most-vaccinated big counties than in less-vaccinated counties. Vaccinations save lives.
He wrote:
About 1 in 420 Americans has died of covid-19, according to official data. And we’re still averaging more than 1,000 deaths per day.
But in certain areas — and indeed in many areas in which the population is much more tightly packed and the coronavirus could transmit more easily — the story is far less grim. A big reason: widespread vaccination. Death rates are far below the national average in the most-vaccinated, often-urban areas.
Much has been written about the yawning gap in outcomes between less-vaccinated and more-vaccinated areas, especially as deaths in less-vaccinated, red states significantly and increasingly outpace more-vaccinated, blue states. The Washington Post’s Philip Bump also reported this week that deaths in red counties are more than 50 percent higher than in blue counties.
But even that might undersell just how beneficial vaccination is in preventing the worst that the coronavirus has to offer — particularly when adopted on a grand scale in a given area…
Perhaps the most highly vaccinated large county in America, according to New York Times data, is Montgomery County, Md., just outside the District of Columbia. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show 93 percent of those 12 and older there are fully vaccinated, compared to around 70 percent nationally. The number dying over the past week is eight times as high nationally — 3.4 per 1 million — as it is in Montgomery County — 0.4 per 1 million — even as Montgomery County is near some virus hotspots.
The relative rate is similar in two of the handful of other most-vaccinated large counties in the country: Dane County, Wis. (home to Madison), where 86 percent of people 12 and older are fully vaccinated, per the CDC, and San Francisco, where 84 percent are vaccinated. Dane County also has 0.4 deaths per 1 million despite being in one of the most hard-hit regions, the Midwest.
Slightly fewer people 12 and over are vaccinated in New York City, though still north of 80 percent. Over the past week, it has registered a per-capita death rate about one-third the national average.
The evidence that the vaccines are effective is overwhelming, yet Republican governors and senators continue to spread misinformation and oppose any effort to mandate masks or vaccines. Conservative parents harass local school boards, demanding the “right” to keep their children unprotected from a deadly virus.
Donald Trump should be boasting about his role in pushing for the development of vaccines, which he called Operation Warp Speed. Why isn’t he publicly urging his admirers to get the vaccines that he funded? Why isn’t he encouraging followers to take “the Trump vaccine,” instead of standing by silently as his followers die?
Why are Republicans like Governor Abbott of Texas, Governor DeSantis of Florida, and Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin promoting disinformation and complacency while fighting effective public health measures? Are they sabotaging their own base intentionally?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Shhhhhhh. They might figure it out. ________________________________
Here is the reason: Republicans know that their people are willing to sacrifice themselves for a cause they think is right. So they make a silly risk (the spreading of Covid) into a personal freedom issue. This makes their gullible base feel like it is a part of something. Their base is strengthened in its resolve, perhaps even swelled by the addition of some passing by personal freedom democrats. The people they lose may be their own, but they still have a virtual lock on these communities, made sure by appealing to fear of anti-American leftists, homosexuals, black and brown people, anti-abortionists, and now those dreaded CRT purveyors. So what’s a few dead supporters if it causes the solid voter block to be more solid?
abortionists, not anti abortionists
and chaos divides: many divided voters are often not sure WHY they must vote for their party but vote for their party they will
Roy,
You live in a red state, I don’t, so you know more about your neighbors than I do. But I can’t imagine anyone saying or thinking, “I don’t mind if Mama dies of COVID, because it will strengthen our resolve not to be vaccinated.”
Joe Biden’s fault
You’d be amazed Diane, in my red state, how many people have loved ones who have died of Covid who still refuse to get vaccinated. A couple in the news have said it was okay their loved one died because at least they were “free of government mandates.” Kid you not.
Threat: I have heard those sentiments of not those words
Some on the right already claim that this real news is, of course, fake news. These sheeples will never face truth if they believe everything from the government or media is a conspiracy or lie.
What else would we expect from the party that has embraced far right wing libertarian toxic sludge to the max 1,000%. The GOP spews lies and hypocrisy at the speed of light while most of the top phonies in the party and the media have been vaccinated. Oh, they claim, we’re not against the vaccines, we’re against mandates. Wrong! The GOP is against reason, sanity and civility. For reference just peruse the outrageous comments and slanders made by Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Paul Gosar, Thomas Massie and Matt Gaetz. Plus the long-time radicals posing as “normal” Republicans such as McCarthy, Gohmert, Paul, Foxx, Scalise, Stefanik, etc., ad nauseam.
A funny comment from my cousin. She meets a lot of very conservative people in her work. Back in the spring she was cynically observing that all her Trumpist acquaintences who had discounted the idea that covid was dangerous were getting in line to be vaccinated, many of them before their age group was eligible.
Meanwhile, the faithful die. An old friend and former minister of ours lies hurting from covid in a hospital. I am sure he took the conservative koolaid about the evil associated with the vaccine. I bet he even thinks the vaccine is the mark of the beast (a reference to some Christian interpretations of millennialism).
OK. Lord, Roy. I have to splain everthang to you. You see, the first letter of Alexandra Ocasio Cortez’s last name is the Third letter of the alphabet. If you divide 666 by 3, you git 222. If you add 2 plus 2 plus 2, you get 6. An three 6’s makes 666. Coincidence? I think not!
But course yore minister is rite about that mark! Visible sign of it lasts jist a few daze, but the INVISIBLE Mark of Cain lasts for ETERNITY!
Bob Shepherd
The winner
Someone sent me Cong. Joe Massie’s Xmas greeting card, showing him holding an AR-15, seated with his wife and children, each of whom held a rifle or assault weapon, all smiling happily.
Maybe we should approach this using the mechanisms of the GOP. Spread the rumor that the anti-vax/anti-mask campaigns were created by liberals to deliberately expose GOP voters to the deadly disease. GOP voters are known to be older and more likely to die if they get the disease, so they have been targeted with these fake news campaigns.
LOL! This could work!!!
Steve,
That’s a great idea!!
The NPR article had a postscript about a popular conservative talk-show host named Phil Valentine. He made his living giving sarcastic voice to all who opposed “liberalism” for many years. His definition of liberalism was pliable, matching the meaning of words to whomever he wanted to sneer at. When the covid hit, he sneered at all the doctors and other liberals for shutting down the economy until he got covid and died. His deathbed confession now rings through his brother, who has been “canceled” by his conservative brethren.
It’s apparent to me that Traitor Trump is the Republican Party’s Glorious Leader on steroids, cocaine, and Diet Coke. This traitor has a LONG history as a micromanager, cheat, liar, fraud, racist, want-to-be-thug (he’s too much of a coward to risk injuring his little-bitty hands so he hires others to do it for him while he watches the crime take place on a flat-screen TV), et al.
Any Republican that doesn’t do what Trump wants will end up getting death threats and a Trumpist facist running against them in 2022, splitting the party about 60-40. The 60 represents Republicans that vote for Trump and want him back.
From what I read in yesterday’s news, that’s why Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts says he won’t run again. Any Republican that loves their family but refuses to do what Trump wants, will resign to save their family from facing the death threats from Traitor Trump’s fascist MAGA hat mob.
https://www.npr.org/2021/12/01/1060608500/massachusetts-gov-charlie-baker-says-he-wont-be-running-for-reelection
I know this may be blasphemous to some here, but the passing of Bob Dole bears some reflection when reading this post. I rarely agreed with Dole and often I opposed many of the policies he supported, but I admired him so much. His legacy is one that is missed sorely today. I got to witness Dole up close on a number of occasions in the early 90s. His humor was something few Americans got to see. And he was a Senate institutionalist, something that is sorely missing today in his party. His decision to run for president in 1996, in retrospect, is something he probably would not have done again had he had the chance, especially if he had the foresight to see where his party was going. Had he not run, I am convinced we would have had a form of national insurance started. He was a great American.
A moving tribute, Greg!
How about if the unvaccinated pay for their own Covid hospital bills?
rwieck: I love that idea: the unvaccinated pay for their own COVID hospital bills.
I heard recently that a nation in Europe has started lockdowns for the unvaccinated only.
Yup, I believe Germany has made proof of vaccination a requirement for entering public places of various sorts, all the opera and orchestra houses, etc. And, I believe it is Singapore that has stopped paying the hospital bills of the unvaccinated.
In NYC, there are few places that don’t require proof of vaccination.
It won’t happen unless the insurance companies refuse to pay because the hospitals don’t care as long as they get paid.
Of course, it would really be nothing out of the ordinary for hospitals to charge individuals without insurance — or what is more likely, to simply refuse to treat them, which is already SOP at many hospitals in the US.
ARmed against Evil
My AR will protect me
And ward the evil off
They never will inject me
My AR is enough
To keep them at a distance
And never let them near
My AR is resistance
To everything I fear
The two states with the most Republican voters over 65 are Fla. and Iowa.
“Its the economy stupid”. The longer the Pandemic persists the more it disrupts and holds the economy hostage, the lower the approval of Biden and the Democrats . The story of the “great resignation ” may be another fable of the media talking heads . While it is true that workers at the bottom of the wage scale have seen wage increases showing they are moving between employers, the wage increases have not transferred to the rest of the workforce. What has happened is a large increase in retirements of more well off workers not as easily replaced. Poor people don’t have the pensions to retire before Social Security and Medicare. Early retirements accounting for a large part of the drop in worker participation.
What also happened was stubbornly high first time claims for unemployment right till the end of September when the virus started to decline. Those are layoffs you can not quit a job and collect unemployment and those were layoff that tracked the virus. That has reversed rapidly since late October, to now multi decade lows.
It is a recession when you are unemployed a depression when I am unemployed . Unemployment even at 6.7% when Biden took office was bad but 93.3% of people who say they wanted to be or could be employed were employed, The thing that everyone notices is inflation. Whether it is severe or not. The Republicans blame it on the Democratic rescue plan. As if unemployed low wage workers were not spending it as it came in and were saving it for Christmas shopping in 2021. The reality the American people have not increased their spending all that much. Demand is not that much greater than where it was projected to be Pre-Pandemic. The virus has caused a drop in Demand for services, primarily Travel, Leisure and Hospitality by 20%(affecting the EU as well). Those Americans who suffered no unemployment the vast majority of Americans. They are flush with cash that they did not spend on a trip to Italy (I did) the movies out for dinner or a Broadway show. They are spending it on manufactured goods that are in short supply or were feared to be in short supply when wholesalers and retailers placed massive orders mainly from Asia to meet the shift in demand. The on demand supply chain ,pride of American business management collapses under the strain. Shipping costs go through the roof and inflation hits a relatively mild 5.62% higher than we are used to but try telling the Consumer its not 1979-80 .
Meantime the fake media goes to town and I don’t mean Fox and OAN.
The supposedly “Liberal Media” shifted from portraying September’s good job numbers as a disaster, to inflation in a Jack Flash second. Doing so when October’s numbers and revisions showed Septembers numbers were actually fantastic . CNN finds a family in Texas with 9 kids that goes through five million gallons of milk a week and the NY Times a Garage owner with a 1963 muscle car who goes through $10,000 dollars of gas a week at $7.49 a gallon. Oh did I exaggerate; not much more than CNN or the Times both who got Trump elected in 16.
The Republicans are not stupid and they know the Media will be complicit and the American people are too stupid to trace it back to Republicans festering the virus, ask Dana Milbank.
Joel, you are so right. If people don’t like the way Biden is handling the pandemic, compare it with Trump’s indifference and his penchant for recommending quack cures. Biden has made some mistakes, but compared to Trump, he is a giant. You know, because of Republican obstructionism, the U.S. still does not have ambassadors in many major nations, nor is the State Department staffed at the highest levels.
dianeravitch
I was just reading that Biden’s nominee for a Bank Regulator has withdrawn her name. She was accused weeks ago by that slime bucket Kennedy (Louisiana) of being communist because she was born and went to High School in the Soviet Union.
The answer to that level of obstruction is simple, go ask Sanders for a recommendation. Or perhaps for a Christmas present Biden should make a recess appointment of Richard Wolf to that Regulatory position. Then put her name back in nomination in the new year.
Disgraceful.
Although we will be labeled as elitist, I agree so much with the sentiment that “the American people are too stupid”. Actually, I agree with the entire statement, but that really stuck out. There’s just too much empirical evidence to conclude otherwise.
Members of cults act stupid and do things that go against their interests, welfare and even survival.
America is a cult of personality or more precisely, cults of personality.
Has been from the start.
Ironically, the USA was established ostensibly to break away from the Cult of the King, but simply replaced one cult leader with an endless series of offspring of the original cult leaders: the Founding Fathers.
And all too often bastard offspring.
Cult Leaders
The cults of the Moonies
And Krishnas and such
Are led by the “loonies”
You see out at lunch
But sometimes the leaders
Of cults are astute
With Twitters and tweeters
And Foxes to boot
Sadly true.
The all too powerful Presidency — aided and abetted by a dysfunctional and largely obsequious Supreme court and Congress* — is the fatal flaw that will eventually bring the American experiment to an end.
Disaster was just averted by a hair’s breadth , but eventually it will happen.
*The original assumption about “checks and balances” between the branches has proved time and again to be little more than a joke.
If the hateful, extremist GOP wins the Presidency in 2024, it will control every branch of government. Our democracy will become a memory.