LV101 and enoughisenough, see https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-death-rates-higher-republicans-democrats-why-rcna50883 (the article is called "Covid death rates are higher among Republicans than Democrats, mounting evidence shows: Lower
vaccination rates among Republicans could explain the partisan gap, but
some researchers say mask use and social distancing were bigger
factors"). It says the following.
"Average excess death rates in Florida and Ohio were 76%
higher among Republicans than Democrats from March 2020 to December
2021, according to a working paper
released last month by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Excess
deaths refers to deaths above what would be anticipated based on
historical trends.
A study in June
published in Health Affairs similarly found that counties with a
Republican majority had a greater share of Covid deaths through October
2021, relative to majority-Democratic counties.
... The Yale researchers behind the new working paper say vaccine hesitancy among Republicans may be the biggest culprit.
"In
counties where a large share of the population is getting vaccinated,
we see a much smaller gap between Republicans and Democrats," said Jacob
Wallace, an author of that study and an assistant professor of health
policy at the Yale School of Public Health.
Indeed, his
paper found that the partisan gap in the deaths widened from April to
December 2021, after all adults became eligible for Covid vaccines.
Excess death rates in Florida and Ohio were 153% higher among
Republicans than Democrats during that time, the paper showed.
"We really don’t see a big divide until after vaccines became widely available in our two states," Wallace said.
But
the June study suggested that Covid vaccine uptake explained just 10%
of the partisan gap in the deaths. Those researchers suggested that
compliance with other public health measures such as mask use and social
distancing was a significant factor."
See also https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-in-republican-counties-have-higher-death-rates-than-those-in-democratic-counties/ (the article is called "People in Republican Counties Have Higher Death Rates Than Those in Democratic Counties: A growing mortality gap between Republican and Democratic areas may largely stem from policy choices"). it says the following.
'During the COVID-19 pandemic, the link between politics and health
became glaringly obvious. Democrat-leaning “blue” states were more
likely to enact mask requirements and vaccine and social distancing
mandates. Republican-leaning “red” states were much more resistant to
health measures. The consequences of those differences emerged by the
end of 2020, when rates of hospitalization and death from COVID
rose in conservative counties and dropped in liberal ones. That
divergence continued through 2021, when vaccines became widely
available. And although the highly transmissible Omicron variant
narrowed the gap in infection rates, hospitalization and death rates,
which are dramatically reduced by vaccines, remain higher in
Republican-leaning parts of the country.
... In a study published in June in The BMJ, Warraich and his colleagues showed that over the two decades prior to the pandemic, there was a growing gap in mortality rates
for residents of Republican and Democratic counties across the U.S. In
2001, the study’s starting point, the risk of death among red and blue
counties (as defined by the results of presidential elections) was
similar. Overall, the U.S. mortality rate has decreased in the nearly
two decades since then (albeit not as much as in most other high-income
countries). But the improvement for those living in Republican counties
by 2019 was half that of those in Democratic counties—11 percent lower
versus 22 percent lower.
.. The new study, conducted by researchers in Texas, Missouri,
Massachusetts and Pakistan, covers the years 2001 through 2019 and
examines age-adjusted mortality rates—the number of deaths per 100,000
people each year—from the top 10 leading causes of death, as recorded in
2019. These include heart disease, cancer, lung disease, unintentional
injuries and suicide. The researchers then analyzed county-level results
in each of the five presidential elections that took place during their
study period, identifying counties as Republican or Democratic for the
subsequent four years. They found the gap in mortality rates between
Republican and Democratic counties increased for nine out of 10 causes
of death. (The gap for cerebrovascular disease, which includes stroke
and aneurysms, remained but narrowed.) Political environment, the
authors suggest in the paper, is a “core determinant of health.”
... And an analysis of the new study’s data by subgroups supports the idea
that individual choices play a role. Hispanic Americans everywhere saw
significant improvements in their risk of death. Black Americans still
have the highest mortality rates of any racial group, but they saw
relatively similar improvement. “It didn’t really matter where they
lived,” Warraich says. For white Americans, however, the difference was
profound—a fourfold increase in the mortality gap between those living
in Republican and Democratic areas.
... In the intervening decades liberal states enacted more policies to
address health concerns while conservative states went in the opposite
direction, with inflection points in the early 1980s 1994 and 2010.
Montez notes that those dates line up with Ronald Reagan’s election as
U.S. president, Newt Gingrich’s control of Congress and the rise of Tea
Party politics. Political affiliation drives social policies and
spending, says Lois Lee, a pediatric emergency physician at Boston
Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Conservatives tend to
see health as a matter of individual responsibility and to prefer less
government intervention. Liberals often promote the role of government
to implement regulations to protect health. The Democratic approach has
included expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Access to
health care and having health insurance are important for well-being,
Warraich says. Democrats also spend more on what are known as the social
determinants of health. “We know things like your housing situation,
your socioeconomic status, your access to healthy foods and healthy
lifestyles, as well as exposure to toxic stress—all these things affect
your overall physical as well as emotional and mental health,” Lee says.
Several kinds of policies—around tobacco, labor laws, the environment
and guns—repeatedly emerge as significant. “Each party has bundled
multiple policies together,” Montez says. In Mississippi, for example,
there are no statewide clean indoor air policies restricting smoking in
bars, restaurants or workplaces, Montez says. In California, on the
other hand, smoking is restricted in all three environments. Cigarette
taxes also differ dramatically. “The places where you can’t smoke
indoors are also the places where cigarettes cost a lot,” Montez says.
... Cultural differences between red and blue counties also likely
contributed to COVID deaths. “You’re affected by your neighbors,” says
Neil Sehgal, a public health professor at the University of Maryland and
co-author of a recent study of the association between COVID mortality
and county-level voting. Sehgal and his colleagues found that through
October 2021, majority-Republican counties experienced 72.9 additional deaths per 100,000 people
relative to majority-Democratic counties. To the researchers’ surprise,
however, vaccine uptake explained only 10 percent of the difference.
The finding suggests that differences in COVID outcomes are driven by a
combination of factors, including the likelihood of, say, engaging in
unmasked social events or in-person dining, Sehgal says. By February
2022 the COVID death rate in all counties Donald Trump won in the 2020
presidential election was substantially higher than in counties that Joe
Biden won—326 deaths per 100,000 people versus 258. “COVID was probably
the most dramatic example I’ve seen in my career of the influence of
policy choices on health outcomes,” Woolf says.'
