MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN

The fact that the election was close, with Republicans failing to win races it was expected they would, has brought up a lot of discussion of how that happened.

Lots of factors were at play. Including one that doesn’t get talked about much: excess COVID deaths.

There are several ongoing studies of the Republican resistance to the COVID vaccines and the preliminary findings suggest that post-vaccine, Republicans accounted for about 80 percent more of the excess deaths than Democrats. Part of this is because of vaccine hesitancy; part of it is because of the age profile of voters (stupid old boomers).

I’m not going to burden you with the math here, but if you want to read up on it, the data is quite striking, all the way to the county level.

Between January 2021 and this month, 9,400 people in Nevada died of COVID. In that period, there were 29,852 deaths in Arizona; 40,449 in Georgia; 47,994 in Pennsylvania.

These are significant numbers when these elections are so close. So, using the logic that Republicans accounted for about 80% of these excess deaths, this theory of COVID deaths impacting the election results (and further adding to Trump's responsibility for these mid-term losses) is actually quite plausible.

The data suggests that the majority of these people would have been Republican voters. Keep that number in mind.

Jacob Wallace and Jason L. Schwartz of the Yale School of Public Health have recently authored a paper, “Excess Death Rates for Republicans and Democrats During the Covid-19 Pandemic.” The abstract of the paper states:

“Political affiliation has emerged as a potential risk factor for COVID-19, amid evidence that Republican-leaning counties have had higher COVID-19 death rates than Democrat- leaning counties and evidence of a link between political party affiliation and vaccination views. This study constructs an individual-level dataset with political affiliation and excess death rates during the COVID-19 pandemic via a linkage of 2017 voter registration in Ohio and Florida to mortality data from 2018 to 2021. We estimate substantially higher excess death rates for registered Republicans when compared to registered Democrats, with almost all of the difference concentrated in the period after vaccines were widely available in our study states. Overall, the excess death rate for Republicans was 5.4 percentage points (pp), or 76%, higher than the excess death rate for Democrats. Post- vaccines, the excess death rate gap between Republicans and Democrats widened from 1.6 pp (22% of the Democrat excess death rate) to 10.4 pp (153% of the Democrat excess death rate). The gap in excess death rates between Republicans and Democrats is concentrated in counties with low vaccination rates and only materializes after vaccines became widely available.”

They go on to point out in the paper:

“Political party affiliation was associated with excess death rates at the individual level during the initial years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Registered Republicans in Florida and Ohio had higher excess death rates than registered Democrats, driven by a large mortality gap in the period after all adults were eligible for vaccines. These results adjust for county-by-age differences in excess deaths during the pandemic, suggesting that there were within-age-bycounty differences in excess death associated with political party affiliation.”

Which explains why Florida, where Governor DeSanctimonious resisted imposing any Covid restrictions and still refuses to allow cruise line companies to take precautions regarding their passengers before setting sail, had an excess death number of 80,000, highest of any state. Unfortunately, all the Baby Boomer dumbasses who retired to Florida were still able to provide him with 150,000 additional morons , er, I mean voters, in 2022since he won election in a close vote in 2018.

The Pew Research Center reported:

“Early in the pandemic, urban areas were disproportionately impacted. During the first wave, the coronavirus death rate in the 10% of the country that lives in the most densely populated counties was more than nine times that of the death rate among the 10% of the population living in the least densely populated counties. In each subsequent wave, however, the nation’s least dense counties have registered higher death rates than the most densely populated places.

“Despite the staggering death toll in densely populated urban areas during the first months of the pandemic (an average 36 monthly deaths per 100,000 residents), the overall death rate over the course of the pandemic is slightly higher in the least populated parts of the country (an average monthly 15 deaths per 100,000 among the 10% living in the least densely populated counties vs. 13 per 100,000 among the 10% in the most densely populated counties).”

“The overall death rate over the course of the pandemic is slightly higher in the least populated parts of the country.”

“In each subsequent wave, however, the nation’s least dense counties have registered higher death rates than the most densely populated places.”

“But by the third wave of the pandemic, which began in fall 2020, the pattern had reversed: Counties that voted for Donald Trump over Joe Biden were suffering substantially more deaths from the coronavirus pandemic than those that voted for Biden over Trump. This reversal is likely a result of several factors including differences in mitigation efforts and vaccine uptake, demographic differences, and other differences that are correlated with partisanship at the county level.”

“During this third wave – which continued into early 2021 – the coronavirus death rate among the 20% of Americans living in counties that supported Trump by the highest margins in 2020 was about 170% of the death rate among the one-in-five Americans living in counties that supported Biden by the largest margins.”

“During the fourth wave of the pandemic, death rates in the most pro-Trump counties were about four times what they were in the most pro-Biden counties. When the highly transmissible omicron variant began to spread in the U.S. in late 2021, these differences narrowed substantially. However, death rates in the most pro-Trump counties were still about 180% of what they were in the most pro-Biden counties throughout late 2021 and early 2022.”

“The cumulative impact of these divergent death rates is a wide difference in total deaths from COVID-19 between the most pro-Trump and most pro-Biden parts of the country. Since the pandemic began, counties representing the 20% of the population where Trump ran up his highest margins in 2020 have experienced nearly 70,000 more deaths from COVID-19 than have the counties representing the 20% of population where Biden performed best. Overall, the COVID-19 death rate in all counties Trump won in 2020 is substantially higher than it is in counties Biden won (as of the end of February 2022, 326 per 100,000 in Trump counties and 258 per 100,000 in Biden counties).”

“Partisan differences in COVID-19 death rates expanded dramatically after the availability of vaccines increased. Unvaccinated people are at far higher risk of death and hospitalization from COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and vaccination decisions are strongly associated with partisanship. Among the large majority of counties for which reliable vaccination data exists, counties that supported Trump at higher margins have substantially lower vaccination rates than those that supported Biden at higher margins.”

Many of the Republican losses were by extremely small margins. For example:

Adam Laxalt lost the Nevada Senate race by 6,000 votes. Kari Lake seems to have lost Arizona governor’s race by about 30,000 votes. Joe Kent lost in Washington’s 3rd District by 5,000 votes.

Go look at those COVID numbers again.

All of this is a polite way of saying there are now more deaths in Defective Deplorable Dumbfuckistan, i.e., MAGAworld. And when there are fewer Homo Saps around, that means we’re back on track to becoming majority Homo Sapiens again.

Back in January 2020, a scientist friend of mine told me: “Pandemics are Evolution’s IQ test: are you intelligent enough to take this information and modify your behavior in such a way as to maximize your likelihood of survival? The test is pass/fail.”

Harry Truman was right back in 1948: “The only ‘good Republicans’ are pushing up daisies.”

They are truly Making America Great Again with their departures.

You can support That’s Another Fine Mess with a paid subscription. It only costs $7/month or $70/year, saving you $14.

Comments are for the paid subscribers.