Politics, vaccines, and excess deaths
This story caught my eye:
The study examined the deaths of 538,139 people 25 years and older in Florida and Ohio, between January 2018 and December 2021, with researchers linking them to party registration records. Researchers found the excess death rate for Republicans and Democrats was about the same at the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
Both parties experienced a sharp but similar increase in excess deaths the following winter. But after April 2021, the gap in excess death rates emerged, with the rate for Republicans 7.7 percentage points higher than the rate for Democrats. For Republicans, that translated into a 43 percent increase in excess deaths.
Researchers said the gap in excess death rates was larger in counties with lower vaccination rates and noted that the gap was primarily driven by voters in Ohio. The results suggest that differences in vaccination attitudes and the uptake among Republican and Democratic voters “may have been factors in the severity and trajectory of the pandemic” in the United States.
If the 2024 election is extremely close in places like Wisconsin, these excess deaths could cost the GOP the presidency. I’m not sure if killing off your voters is a wise political strategy.
There’s also this:
KFF estimated that between June 2021 and March 2022, at least 234,000 covid-19 deaths could have been prevented if people had received a primary series of vaccinations.
PS. Not content with killing these people, they are also trying to defraud them. If you watch Fox News, you’ll see that most of the commercials are aimed at taking advantage of gullible old people. And of course their private emails show they just make up the news, and don’t really believe the nonsense they spout. I don’t think Succession is cynical enough–the (liberal) screenwriters cannot even imagine the level of corruption.
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26. July 2023 at 10:41
“I’m not sure if killing off your voters is a wise political strategy.”
When you say things like this, people begin to wonder whether you’ve completely lost your mind, which is why you have zero comments on this post.
First of all, anyone who believes that the GOP is trying to kill their voters is mentally insane. That’s just beyond the pale, and a sign of radicalization and hatred towards a particular party, and a particular group of people who simply don’t agree with you.
Secondly, there is evidence that the vaccine causes certain side effects, like myocarditis and blood clots, which can kill, and so competent people weigh their current health, their history of illness, their age, and ultimately take the advice of their doctor, and other doctors, including world renowned cardiologists and virologists, one of which is the most published cardiologist in world history (McCullough) and then they take that advice and make a decision. Nobody is trying to kill anyone, they simply have a different view.
Their decision might be a wrong one, it might be the right one, but that is the nature of life. There are ebbs and flows, and if you gamble on the virus as opposed to gambling on the vaccine, then that’s a personal choice. If one gets the virus they might cough for a few days, feel perfectly healthy after, like myself, laugh at those who have heart attacks at only 18 years old, after getting the vaccine, like Lebron James’s son, and say I’m so glad I didn’t gamble on the vaccine because the virus was so weak and pathetic …OR… one might end up in a hospital, on a ventilator, like my grandfather, thinking to themselves I wish I took the vaccine. It depends on your immune system.
But these people certainly don’t need you to tell them that Kennedy Jr. or McCullough or Malone on Fox T.V, are all anti-scientists, and nobody should ever listen to one word they ever say because apparently publishing 600 articles, many of them in Lancet over two decades, and walking around with an IQ of 180, suddenly makes you an idiot. If there is anything Peter is not, it’s stupid.
Maybe Peter is wrong, maybe he’s right, but you are not in a position to challenge him. You don’t have 1/10 the publications, not to mention you are not a cardiologist. You are a social scientist, and so your opinions on the vaccine and the virus are utterly and completely irrelevant because you have no idea what you are talking about. You only repeat what you hear from other sources, and choose to discard what Peter and Robert and others say. You are simply in no position to enter the scientific debate. You are fifty rows in the stands. You are an economist, who cannot even explain the parts of a cell. Your knowledge of biology is so limited that you can’t have a five minute conversation with Peter that is coherent. So get a grip with reality. Let Peter engage in the debate, and let the debate play out, and stop trying to insert yourself into it. You have no idea which side is correct and which is wrong. You can only guess.
26. July 2023 at 17:46
This is simply the obvious truth, which even Fox employees admit behind the scenes, or when forced to testify under oath.
27. July 2023 at 02:15
The good news is that the benefits of vaccination appear to be mostly internalized. (If not, then vaccinated Democrats in low-vaccination areas would have suffered as much as Republicans from other people’s non-vaccination.) When I was a kid, I was taught that vaccines were a way to protect oneself from disease. I found it strange in recent years when so many people started talking about vaccines as (primarily) an obligation to protect other people collectively.
If people like Tucker Carlson don’t really believe the nonsense that they spout, then at least they are unlikely to spread much misinformation. Rather, they just reflect their viewers’ pre-existing beliefs. If Fox News didn’t spout that nonsense, then those viewers probably would have just turned to Newsmax for it. That’s a lot different from, say, teaching CRT and Gender Queer Theory to children because one really wants to influence the next generation’s thinking rather than just telling kids what their parents already want them to hear.
Liberals are much harder than conservatives to defraud because they usually look to spend Other People’s money.
27. July 2023 at 12:15
Do we think this study adjusted for age or not? The article makes me think it did not.
28. July 2023 at 09:28
My conspiracy Fox-viewing anti Vax neighbors think the Vax is now killing vast numbers of folks, I tell them yeah, those liberals and scientists engineered it so they will be left in a world filled with conservative nut cases like you – there’s some critical thinking!
28. July 2023 at 10:13
I agree Scott.
28. July 2023 at 12:53
BC, You said:
“Liberals are much harder than conservatives to defraud”
The problem with Fox viewers is that they are older. They lived through a period where TV was far more trustworthy. They are easy marks.
derek, The key is the way the relative data changed after vaccines were introduced. That’s not just age.
29. July 2023 at 17:13
Ssumner
The authors admit that they did not have vaccination records to know who
Got vaxxed and who did not. Wouldn’t you think that would be an important thing to know before making a claim about who got vaccinated? And who did it? Also the age bands are extremely wide: 25 to 64, these don’t strike me as identical people.
30. July 2023 at 14:11
Kenneth, It’s basically a “difference in difference” study. The smoking gun is that the two groups diverged sharply after vaccines were introduced. No demographic differences can explain away that fact.
In any case, there’s lots of poll data showing Republicans were less likely to get vaccinated.