Study Shows States with Republican Govs. had far worse COVID Death rates

March 22nd, 2021 Daytona Beach FL, Gov Ron DeSantis’ officiates a ‘grand opening’ maskless.  As the state of Florida is ‘completely open’.

States led by Republican governors in the US had much higher rates of COVID-19 infections and deaths throughout 2020, according to a new study by the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, released March 9th, 2021.

The study, named Associations Between Governor Political Affiliation and COVID-19 Cases, Deaths, and Testing in the U.S., compared Democratic led states vs GOP led states and their rates of COVID, it was clear by the end, that cases COVID deaths and testing in GOP lead states were measurably worse than in Dem states.

A “longitudinal analysis” examined COVID-19 incident cases, death rates, polymerase chain reaction testing, and test positivity from March 15 (March 24 for testing and test positivity) through December 15, 2020 for the 50 states.  Early on in the Spring of 2020, Democratic states like CA and NY were hit hardest as they were the ‘ports of entry’ for the virus.

Republican-led states began to see higher rates of COVID-19 deaths on July 4, according to the analysis, with an estimated 1.56 deaths per million on average among states with Republican governors, compared to 1.33 deaths per million on average among states with Democratic governors.

Recently, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced on March 2nd that Texas is ‘100% open”, and lifted the state’s mask mandate.

On Aug. 5, the average death rate among states with Republican governors was estimated to be 3.09 deaths per million, versus 1.72 deaths per million among states with Democratic governors. “Thus, on that date, death rates were about 1.8 times higher in states with Republican governors compared to states with Democratic governors,” said one of the study’s authors Brian Neelon PhD.

This higher death rate trend in GOP lead states continued through the rest of the year as the pandemic unfolded — all the way up to the end of the study period in mid-December.

“Our findings suggest that governor party affiliation may have contributed to a range of policy decisions like stay-at-home orders and mask mandates that collectively impacted the spread of the virus,” Neelon said, adding that, “Health policy decisions like issuing mask mandates have downstream effects on increasing the number of cases or mitigating cases or deaths depending on the policy.”

Thankfully the vaccines are rolling out across the nation, in both Democratic and Republican lead states.

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