Morris David S
Department of Sociology & Anthropology College of Charleston Charleston South Carolina USA.
Soc Sci Q. 2021 Sep;102(5):2412-2431. doi: 10.1111/ssqu.13053. Epub 2021 Aug 30.
Republicans and Democrats have displayed widely divergent beliefs and behaviors related to COVID-19, creating the possibility that geographic areas with more Donald Trump supporters may be more likely to suffer from the disease.
I use 2016 election data, COVID-19 case and mortality data, and multilevel linear growth models with state fixed effects to estimate the relationship between county-level support for Donald Trump and the trajectory of cumulative COVID-19 cases and deaths per 100,000 county residents between March 17, 2020 and August 31, 2020.
Counties more supportive of Trump had fewer COVID-19 cases and deaths in the early months of the pandemic. However, as the summer moved into July and August, counties less supportive of Trump stopped growth rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths, while counties more supportive of Trump saw a trajectory of increased cases and deaths in July and August. This is likely due to the widely divergent beliefs and behaviors displayed by Republicans and Democrats toward COVID-19.
This study underscores the power of polarization and partisanship in the public sphere, even when it comes to a public health issue.
共和党人和民主党人在与新冠病毒相关的信念和行为上表现出了广泛的差异，这使得在那些有更多唐纳德·特朗普支持者的地理区域可能更易感染该疾病。
我使用2016年的选举数据、新冠病毒病例和死亡率数据，以及带有州固定效应的多层线性增长模型，来估计县级层面上对唐纳德·特朗普的支持与2020年3月17日至2020年8月31日期间每10万名县居民中新冠病毒累积病例和死亡轨迹之间的关系。
在疫情爆发的最初几个月里，对特朗普支持度更高的县的新冠病毒病例和死亡人数较少。然而，随着夏季进入7月和8月，对特朗普支持度较低的县的新冠病毒病例和死亡增长率停止上升，而对特朗普支持度更高的县在7月和8月出现了病例和死亡人数增加的轨迹。这可能是由于共和党人和民主党人对新冠病毒表现出的广泛不同的信念和行为。
本研究强调了公共领域中两极分化和党派偏见的影响力，即使是在涉及公共卫生问题时也是如此。
