During the last presidential election, it’s no surprise that many people have voted for Trump. And since May 2021, those people are three times as likely to die from COVID-19, than those who voted for Biden. This is all according to a new analysis, which shows how political polarization and misinformation play a role in how many deaths there are in the country.
NPR, who conducted the analysis, stated that they’ve looked at deaths per 100,000 people in about 3,000 counties in the US. They have gathered data since May 2021. People who lived in counties that had 60% or higher votes for Trump had 27 times the death rates of those who voted for Biden.
The data showed that the people who voted for Trump also had the lowest vaccination rate. The analysis only took into account the geographic location of COVID-19 deaths. Polling information about the vaccine suggests that Republicans are the most affected. However, the exact political views of each person that had COVID-19 are unknown.
Recent data shows that Republicans are the largest group of unvaccinated people in the US. They also show that people who don’t trust the official sources of info about COVID-19 and the vaccines, are also Republicans.
“An unvaccinated person is three times as likely to lean Republican as they are to lean Democrat. If I wanted to guess if somebody was vaccinated or not and I could only know one thing about them, I would probably ask what their party affiliation is,” stated Liz Hamel, vice president of public opinion. Political perspective is the strongest indication of whether someone is vaccinated or not.
In time, the vaccination rates have risen, while the rate of Republican people getting the vaccine remained at 59%. 91% of Democrats are vaccinated, so the difference is huge.
