Study: Blue and Purple Counties Adapted to Covid-Red Counties Did Not

[Stallion]

Although COVID-19 has affected the entire United States, a careful look at the data shows persistent differences across the country. As with other infectious diseases, COVID-19 has thrived in the densest areas. Locations with more vulnerable populations have also suffered disproportionately. How the disease has spread across the US has had important political consequences. Klaus Desmet and Romain Wacziarg write that the initially smaller impact of COVID-19 in Republican-leaning counties may have led to laxer attitudes towards the disease, contributing to more dire outcomes in those areas over the longer run: Republican voting counties have had a higher number of deaths compared to those which voted differently.

The rapid spread of COVID-19 across the Unites States has led to a sense that no location would be spared. Early in the pandemic, in the spring of 2020, the large urban centers of the East Coast were badly hit. At the time, the more remote parts of the country still felt safe. But as the summer turned into fall, some of the most rural and isolated states in the US, such as the Dakotas, saw record numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths. With no part of the US seemingly safe from the virus, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s words of the end of March 2020 took on a prescient tone: “Look at us today (…) We are your future (…) New York is the canary in the coal mine.”

Was everywhere in the country equally vulnerable to the effects of COVID-19? To what extent do the characteristics of different locations continue to affect the severity of COVID-19 today? In new research we use US county data to examine a broad set of potential explanations for disease severity, ranging from population density and poverty, to racial composition and age. We analyze the role of these potential determinants over time, starting on March 15, 2020, and ending on November 30, 2020. The time dimension is essential: what might have looked like a source of susceptibility in the early spring could very well have ceased to play a role by the late fall.

(more at link)

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2021/03/30/why-republican-voting-states-began-with-better-covid-19-outcomes-but-were-hit-harder-as-the-pandemic-unfolded/

[PortTack]

1. Darwin is a Democrat!!