The coronavirus pandemic may have pushed politics over an evolutionary line, beating out the instinct for survival. People’s political beliefs seem to have caused behaviors that threaten their health, and everyone else’s.
A New York Times report, a study of mask mandates in Kansas counties, and Iffy’s “COVID-Positive Party” support a hypothesis that politically motivated denial of CDC guidelines led to adverse health outcomes.
Now we have another supporting dataset, that of state vaccination vs. Biden-vote percentages. Compare the two state maps to see how closely they match:
Higher vaccination rates are tightly correlated with more Biden votes: a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.8. Here's the same data in a scatter chart showing similar slopes.
Many of the U.S.'s 600K COVID dead would still be with us were it not for the no-mask, no-vax pandemic deniers. How do we avoid this politically motivated magical thinking? What have we learned to get us though the next (surely coming) pandemic?
Data table
| State | Vax% | Vote (D)% |
|---|---|---|
| Vermont | 55.4 | 66.1 |
| Maine | 54.4 | 53.1 |
| Connecticut | 53.4 | 59.3 |
| Massachusetts | 53.4 | 65.6 |
| Rhode Island | 51.5 | 59.4 |
| New Jersey | 48.7 | 57.3 |
| Hawaii | 47.6 | 63.7 |
| New Mexico | 47.8 | 54.3 |
| Maryland | 47.7 | 65.4 |
| New York | 46.7 | 60.9 |
| Minnesota | 46.0 | 52.4 |
| Washington | 46.4 | 58.0 |
| Colorado | 45.2 | 55.4 |
| Virginia | 45.0 | 54.1 |
| Wisconsin | 44.5 | 49.4 |
| Oregon | 45.1 | 56.5 |
| Iowa | 43.7 | 44.9 |
| Pennsylvania | 43.5 | 50.0 |
| South Dakota | 42.4 | 35.6 |
| California | 43.0 | 63.5 |
| Delaware | 43.2 | 58.7 |
| New Hampshire | 48.5 | 52.7 |
| Nebraska | 42.1 | 39.4 |
| Michigan | 42.1 | 50.6 |
| Ohio | 40.2 | 45.2 |
| Illinois | 40.0 | 57.5 |
| Alaska | 39.3 | 42.8 |
| Florida | 38.9 | 47.9 |
| Kansas | 38.4 | 41.6 |
| Kentucky | 38.4 | 36.2 |
| Montana | 38.3 | 40.5 |
| North Dakota | 36.6 | 31.8 |
| Nevada | 36.8 | 50.1 |
| North Carolina | 36.1 | 48.6 |
| Arizona | 35.9 | 49.4 |
| Texas | 35.4 | 46.5 |
| Indiana | 35 | 41.0 |
| Missouri | 34.3 | 41.4 |
| West Virginia | 34.0 | 29.7 |
| Oklahoma | 33.7 | 32.3 |
| South Carolina | 33.7 | 43.4 |
| Idaho | 32.7 | 33.1 |
| Utah | 32.0 | 37.6 |
| Wyoming | 31.8 | 26.6 |
| Tennessee | 31.7 | 37.5 |
| Georgia | 31.1 | 49.5 |
| Louisiana | 31.2 | 39.9 |
| Arkansas | 31.2 | 34.8 |
| Alabama | 29.2 | 36.6 |
| Mississippi | 27.1 | 41.1 |
|
Fully Vaccinated source: CDC COVID Data Tracker. Votes for Biden source: Cook Political Report. | ||