caltrek wrote: ↑Tue Nov 09, 2021 4:15 pm Trump Country is Getting Hit Much Harder by Recent Wave of COVID Deaths
by Jon Skolnik
November 08, 2021
https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/trump-country-deaths/
Inroduction:(Alternet) This past month, the gap in COVID-19 death rates between counties that voted for Donald Trump and President Biden has been higher than ever recorded, according to a New York Times analysis, likely due to lingering Republican hesitancy over the safety of the vaccine.
This month, about "25 out of every 100,000 residents of heavily Trump counties died from Covid, more than three times higher than the rate in heavily Biden counties," the Times found. The analysis – which defines "Trump counties" as any that saw at least 60% of their electorate vote for Trump in the 2020 election – also observed that the gap appears to be climbing.
According to the Times, the difference is most likely explained by the emergence of the COVID-19 vaccine, which has seen much higher rates of hesitancy amongst conservatives. In fact, prior to the vaccine, when the nation saw a marked partisan discrepancy in the use of public health measures, there was a marginal partisan difference in the death rates.
"The true explanation is straightforward," explained the Times' David Leonhardt. "The vaccines are remarkably effective at preventing severe Covid, and almost 40 percent of Republican adults remain unvaccinated, compared with about 10 percent of Democratic adults."
Among those who refuse to get vaccinated, roughly half are "unlikely to change their minds," according to NBC News. It remains unclear whether the gap will continue to widen given the country's entrenched hesitancy around the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine – a sentiment that's been largely fueled by right-wing news sources like Fox News. According to a Media Matters analysis from July, almost 60% of segments about the vaccine "included claims that undermined vaccination efforts."
Great news – I hope this continues. The voter demographics in the U.S. will be improved. And the world is overpopulated anyway – if the stupidest segment wants to Darwin Award themselves off, that's fine with me.