Republicans warned their self-destructive COVID behavior is 'killing off their voters faster than they think' - Raw Story - Celebrating 17 Years of Independent Journalism
By: Alex Henderson (Raw Story - Celebrating Years of Independent Journalism)
gee, what a bummer...
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
When COVID-19 was overwhelming New York City hospitals during the 2020 spring, a silly talking point in right-wing media was that residents of red states didn't need to worry about the pandemic because it only posed a threat to Democratic areas. But COVID-19, just as health experts predicted, found its way to red states in a brutal way. And the current COVID-19 surge is especially severe in red states that have lower vaccination rates. Journalist David Leonhardt, in an article published by the New York Times this week, examines a disturbing pattern: red states where residents are more likely to be anti-vaxxers and more likely to be infected with COVID-19 and die from it.
Leonhardt explains, "A Pew Research Center poll last month found that 86% of Democratic voters had received at least one shot, compared with 60% of Republican voters. The political divide over vaccinations is so large that almost every reliably blue state now has a higher vaccination rate than almost every reliably red state."
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 75% of U.S.-based adults have been at least partially vaccinated for COVID-19. But vaccination rates can vary considerably from one state to another. The Mayo Clinic reports that rates for at least partial vaccination range from 77% in Vermont to 49% in Mississippi, 46% in Idaho and 52% in Alabama. Vermont is a deep blue state with a moderate Republican governor, while Mississippi, Idaho and Alabama are deep red states that former President Donald Trump won by a landslide in 2020.
"It's worth remembering that COVID followed a different pattern for more than a year after its arrival in the U.S.," Leonhardt explains. "Despite widespread differences in mask wearing — and scientific research suggesting that masks reduce the virus' spread — the pandemic was, if anything, worse in blue regions. Masks evidently were not powerful enough to overcome other regional differences, like the amount of international travel that flows through major metro areas, which tend to be politically liberal. Vaccination has changed the situation."
Leonhardt continues, "The vaccines are powerful enough to overwhelm other differences between blue and red areas. Some left-leaning communities — like many suburbs of New York, San Francisco and Washington, as well as much of New England — have such high vaccination rates that even the unvaccinated are partly protected by the low number of cases. Conservative communities, on the other hand, have been walloped by the highly contagious Delta variant."
The Times reporter notes that in many other developed countries, the pandemic hasn't been politicized to the degree that it has in the United States.
"What distinguishes the U.S. is a conservative party — the Republican Party — that has grown hostile to science and empirical evidence in recent decades," Leonhardt observes. "A conservative media complex, including Fox News, Sinclair Broadcast Group and various online outlets, echoes and amplifies this hostility. Trump took the conspiratorial thinking to a new level, but he did not create it."
Epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding, in a Twitter thread posted over the weekend, argues that Republicans are "killing off" their own voters by promoting anti-vaxxer and anti-masker views:
Feigl-Ding points out that under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil — not unlike red states in the U.S.— has suffered high COVID-19 infection rates:
4) vaccine rates heavily differ by red vs blue states. This is a main driver for sure. But also anti mask sentiment… https://t.co/JQ20tJQuUa — Eric Feigl-Ding (@Eric Feigl-Ding) 1632657109.0
Leonhardt notes that the Delta variant has been especially deadly in Republican areas.
"Since Delta began circulating widely in the U.S.," according to Leonhardt, "COVID has exacted a horrific death toll on red America: In counties where Donald Trump received at least 70 percent of the vote, the virus has killed about 47 out of every 100,000 people since the end of June, according to Charles Gaba, a health care analyst. In counties where Trump won less than 32 percent of the vote, the number is about 10 out of 100,000."
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too bad, so sad. go karma go.
please help keep christo-fascism and white supremacy off the NT front page by commenting and voting up seeds like this one - thank you
Somebody had to deliver the news
I did glimpse a story of some insiders from the last administration that are now making a fortune selling ivermectin to the braindead while supporting the vaccine conspiracy morons.
If I were a different kind of person...I would have thought of that. Living in rural Arkansas, there's ivermectin every where. I think Walmart even sells it
huh, that gives me an idea. I can buy bags of disposable needles here and I'm headed back to gooberville for the holidays. what's the name of that harmless stuff they put in IV's? I can probably by the little vials online. I can make official enough looking ivermectin labels. I can see it all now, the anti-vax family 4-pack for only $299. lifetime guarantee!
/s
saline. You could probably pick that up in your local drugstore
haven't you heard? it's not a sin to lie, cheat, or steal from a trumpster now.
Yes, at least in one home in Jefferson it's OK to quote the Koran
that it's OK to lie cheat or steal from the godless secular progressive infidels anywhere, anytime.
gee, I sure hope he had that get out of hell free card laminated...
somebody really should put a stop to the carnage, in about 13 months...
The magamorons are so convinced that we're the ones who are going to lose.
meh, they always stuff a sock in their crotch before they go out on the town ...
Speaking of magamorons, when I left the Giant last Saturday morning I saw this car with these dumbass homemade signs about Hunter Biden and China Joe and these face masks tied together like a streamer. I so wish I had a pen and piece of paper, I would have left a note saying 'you fucking moron' under their wiper. I had hoped to see the shithead to tell them in person but I wasn't going to waste another second on a shithead like that
Silly right-wing media.... as if a virus gives two fucks about Rs & Ds... How fucking stupid can you be?
I had a brief discussion in a take-out line with some guy that claimed covid was all about our government using it for population control. apparently one of my jokes had offended him, as he made mention while exiting the establishment.
I work at a major hospital that also does a lot of research on different things (HIV, cancer etc) and some of the asses that work there still think Covid is no worse than the flu & if people get it they will be immune and the vaccine is worse than the virus itself. I think the death counts speaks to the truth of that.
Morons - all morons.... and of course then you have the "if I pray hard enough God will protect me" idiots.
It is about population control. It's taking out the stupid. Maybe it will improve the gene pool
anti-vaxers are perfecting what the trumpsters claimed the chinese were doing. bwah ha ha ha
Funny how the tune changed when that dispshit slug left his slimy trail out of the White House.
Yeah and I'm all torn up about it. The more the better as far as I'm concerned.