Americans are done with COVID, but it isn't done with us.
Republicans are dying disproportionately to Democrats.
A recent study by Yale researchers published by the National Bureau of Economic Research looked at "excess deaths." We can expect a certain number of births and deaths every day. We have a baseline for each.
People can argue about why someone died. Did they really have COVID, or are physicians inflating the numbers? Even if the dying persons did have COVID, did that cause the death, or would they have soon died anyway? One statistic is well established and credible: Did a person die? States can aggregate those deaths, and researchers can determine if there are "excess deaths" above the natural baseline rate.
The Yale researchers created a data set that looked at deaths in Ohio and Florida. They linked the individual political affiliation as of 2017 with mortality data from 2018 to 2021. The researchers found that during the COVID period in 2020, before a vaccine was available, the death rates for Democrats and Republicans were nearly identical. However, in the period after a vaccine was widely available in 2021, the excess deaths for Republicans was double that of Democrats. Most Democrats were getting vaccinated. Fewer Republicans were. Republicans were getting messages that vaccinations were dangerous or a George Soros/Bill Gates plot. Republican voters got the message that vaccinations were something Democrats did.
Causation is not proven. Only correlation. Maybe the disparate vaccination rate wasn't responsible for the disparate death rate. Maybe it was something else. Maybe watching Fox News causes heart attacks or more slips in the bathtub. But the numbers and the timing suggest that the difference in excess deaths is the difference in vaccination rates.
In the period before vaccines were available in the spring of 2021 there were different rules and cultural norms among Democratic and Republican areas as regards mask-wearing and social distancing. Apparently that did not matter much. The excess death rates were the same for Democratic and Republican areas. I observed this first hand. In 2020 people masked-up in stores in the Democratic city of Ashland. Few people did so in stores in the heavily-Trump area near my farm. Maybe masks and other COVID protocols regarding sanitation and distancing don't matter as much as we thought.
Vaccinations, though, do seem to matter. Big differences in excess deaths showed up after vaccines were available. Here is a graph of the data by county. Higher vaccination rate, fewer deaths.
Here below is a graph of the excess deaths, looking at the individual voter registration of the deceased in Ohio and Florida. As one moves through time from left to right, the upper graph shows the baseline deaths in the pre-COVID era, then the general rise in deaths as COVID spread with a peak around the 2020 election and the winter of 2021 as the first vaccines began rolling out. By the end of 2021 when everyone who wanted a vaccine had easy opportunity to get one, a clear divergence was evident. Fewer Republicans were getting vaccinated than Democrats, and they had significantly more excess deaths.
More vaccinations means fewer excess deaths:
Democratic politicians who were on the leading edge of enforcing masking, school closures, and social distancing have paid a significant political price. Americans grew tired of COVID protocols before some Democratic governors removed COVID protocols. However, there is one arrow in the quiver of public health that appears to have dramatic influence on death rates, at very little of the day-to-day bother of masking: Vaccinations. The vaccinated may well get COVID and spread it, but they are more likely to survive it. Vaccinations are free.
I have heard objections to getting boosters. People complain to me they already got vaccinated once or twice and they are tired of it. They define needing boosters as proof that there is some deficiency with vaccines. There is a messaging problem and it is getting worse. The new multi-variant booster is under-subscribed. A more useful frame for policymakers is to liken vaccinations to an automobile oil change or a tooth cleaning. Vaccinations are a maintenance item.
A PDF of the study is here: Yale Researchers
A readable news story summarizes the study: Ohio Capital Journal.
Here is another readable news story from Utah: Deseret News
This certainly will impact a number of elections in November, amazing the gullibility of the MAGAS
Of course, Republicans will find lots of ways to blame Biden and the Democrats for the increased death rates and not dealing with the Covid crisis...