Hmm...now this should be an eye opener for some..but--it won't be.
I see this as a purely Darwinian exercise---sad but inevitable.
Political affiliation has emerged as a potential risk factor for COVID-19, amid evidence that Republican-leaning counties have had higher COVID-19 death rates than Democrat- leaning counties and evidence of a link between political party affiliation and vaccination views. This study constructs an individual-level dataset with political affiliation and excess death rates during the COVID-19 pandemic via a linkage of 2017 voter registration in Ohio and Florida to mortality data from 2018 to 2021. We estimate substantially higher excess death rates for registered Republicans when compared to registered Democrats, with almost all of the difference concentrated in the period after vaccines were widely available in our study states. Overall, the excess death rate for Republicans was 5.4 percentage points (pp), or 76%, higher than the excess death rate for Democrats. Post- vaccines, the excess death rate gap between Republicans and Democrats widened from 1.6 pp (22% of the Democrat excess death rate) to 10.4 pp (153% of the Democrat excess death rate). The gap in excess death rates between Republicans and Democrats is concentrated in counties with low vaccination rates and only materializes after vaccines became widely available.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused over one million deaths in the United
States [6], leading to considerable interest in identifying risk factors for COVID-19 mortality.
Political affiliation has emerged as one potentially significant risk factor, amid evidence that
Republican-leaning counties have had higher COVID-19 death rates than Democrat-leaning
counties [11, 14]. But it is unknown whether this county-level association — which may be
subject to the ecological fallacy [12] — persists at the individual level. Prior research has also
established differences in vaccination attitudes and social distancing based on political party
affiliation [1, 9, 2, 8, 13], but it has been more difficult thus far to establish corresponding
links to health outcomes due to data limitations. This study overcomes that challenge by
linking voter registration data in Ohio and Florida to mortality data to assess the individual-
level association between political party affiliation and excess mortality during the COVID-19
pandemic. We estimate higher excess death rates for registered Republicans when compared
to registered Democrats after vaccines were widely available — and not before — and these
differences were concentrated in counties with lower vaccination rates.
I see this as a purely Darwinian exercise---sad but inevitable.
Political affiliation has emerged as a potential risk factor for COVID-19, amid evidence that Republican-leaning counties have had higher COVID-19 death rates than Democrat- leaning counties and evidence of a link between political party affiliation and vaccination views. This study constructs an individual-level dataset with political affiliation and excess death rates during the COVID-19 pandemic via a linkage of 2017 voter registration in Ohio and Florida to mortality data from 2018 to 2021. We estimate substantially higher excess death rates for registered Republicans when compared to registered Democrats, with almost all of the difference concentrated in the period after vaccines were widely available in our study states. Overall, the excess death rate for Republicans was 5.4 percentage points (pp), or 76%, higher than the excess death rate for Democrats. Post- vaccines, the excess death rate gap between Republicans and Democrats widened from 1.6 pp (22% of the Democrat excess death rate) to 10.4 pp (153% of the Democrat excess death rate). The gap in excess death rates between Republicans and Democrats is concentrated in counties with low vaccination rates and only materializes after vaccines became widely available.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused over one million deaths in the United
States [6], leading to considerable interest in identifying risk factors for COVID-19 mortality.
Political affiliation has emerged as one potentially significant risk factor, amid evidence that
Republican-leaning counties have had higher COVID-19 death rates than Democrat-leaning
counties [11, 14]. But it is unknown whether this county-level association — which may be
subject to the ecological fallacy [12] — persists at the individual level. Prior research has also
established differences in vaccination attitudes and social distancing based on political party
affiliation [1, 9, 2, 8, 13], but it has been more difficult thus far to establish corresponding
links to health outcomes due to data limitations. This study overcomes that challenge by
linking voter registration data in Ohio and Florida to mortality data to assess the individual-
level association between political party affiliation and excess mortality during the COVID-19
pandemic. We estimate higher excess death rates for registered Republicans when compared
to registered Democrats after vaccines were widely available — and not before — and these
differences were concentrated in counties with lower vaccination rates.
