Red and blue Covid
Imagine getting Covid because Fox News told you to.
The gap in Covid’s death toll between red and blue America has grown faster over the past month than at any previous point.
In October, 25 out of every 100,000 residents of heavily Trump counties died from Covid, more than three times higher than the rate in heavily Biden counties (7.8 per 100,000). October was the fifth consecutive month that the percentage gap between the death rates in Trump counties and Biden counties widened.
Some conservative writers have tried to claim that the gap may stem from regional differences in weather or age, but those arguments fall apart under scrutiny. (If weather or age were a major reason, the pattern would have begun to appear last year.) The true explanation is straightforward: The vaccines are remarkably effective at preventing severe Covid, and almost 40 percent of Republican adults remain unvaccinated, compared with about 10 percent of Democratic adults.
Charles Gaba, a Democratic health care analyst, has pointed out that the gap is also evident at finer gradations of political analysis: Counties where Trump received at least 70 percent of the vote have an even higher average Covid death toll than counties where Trump won at least 60 percent. (Look up your county.)
It seems a high price to pay for the fun of having a jackass in the White House.
It’s a — cough, cough, cough — patriotic duty, dammit!
It’s bodily autonomy. That concept that they learned from but don’t allow for women in a family way.
Preferentially thinning the conservative herd is a strange behaviour to expect from the conservative herd. But then it occurred to me, they’ve been voting against their own interests for decades, why should they stop now?
And they have themselves convinced the vaccine is dangerous and the virus is no big deal.
Depends on their interests though, isn’t it? Utilitarianism only gets you so far. I’d reference “Defund the police” campaign but then again the people most likely to be the victims of crime haven’t really been voting in favor of that stupid slogan.
So the New York Times went off on another one of their Cletus Safaris. This time visiting Hot Springs, VA, a town of 800 in them thar mountains. Betty Sue was so happy their right wing religious nut won. No vaccine mandates now! Heck, Betty Sue ain’t gonna do anything about that that Wuhan Flu!