By Aria Bendix -
NBC News
Coronavirus deaths are unevenly distributed between Republicans and Democrats.
Median excess death rates in Florida and Ohio were 76% higher among Republicans than Democrats between March 2020 and December 2021, according to a working paper released last month by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Excess deaths refer to deaths above what would be anticipated based on historical trends.
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A study published in June in the journal Health Affairs also found that Republican-majority counties had a higher proportion of COVID-19 deaths through October 2021, compared to Democratic-majority counties.
But experts continue to puzzle over the reason for these differences.
Are Lower Vaccination Rates Among Republicans Responsible?
Or did mask wearing and social distancing guidelines prevent more deaths in counties governed by Democrats?
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The Yale researchers behind the new working paper say vaccine hesitancy among Republicans may be the biggest culprit.
“In counties where a large portion of the population is vaccinated, we see a much smaller difference between Republicans and Democrats,” says Jacob Wallace, an author of that study and an associate professor of health policy at the Yale School of Public Health.
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In fact, their work revealed that the partisan gap in deaths widened between April and December 2021, after all adults became eligible for COVID-19 vaccines.
Excess death rates in Florida and Ohio were 153% higher among Republicans than Democrats during that time, according to the document.
"We don't see a big divide until after the vaccines are widely available in both of our states," Wallace said.
But the June study suggested that acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine explained only 10% of the partisan difference in deaths.
Those researchers suggested that compliance with other public health measures, such as wearing masks and social distancing, was an important factor.
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"Vaccination plays a role in the difference we've seen in excess mortality between red and blue places, but it's not the whole story," explained Neil Jay Sehgal, an author of that study and associate professor of health policy and management at the University of Maryland School of Public Health.
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“When there is less transmission, there are fewer cases and less mortality.
And you have less transmission overall by instituting protective policies like mask requirements when we had them, or capacity limits in businesses,” he added.
The role of vaccine hesitancy
Both jobs have their limitations.
Sehgal's team's study looked at counties, not individuals, making it difficult to determine whether other demographic factors -- such as educational level, proximity to health services or the proportion of elderly residents -- played a role in the trend.
The new Yale work, by contrast, links political affiliation to excess COVID-19 deaths at the individual level, but still uses county-level vaccination rates.
Furthermore, the investigation was limited to two states.
“It is quite possible that in Ohio and Florida, due to the nature of their populations, the adoption of the vaccine has played a greater role than [in] the country in general,” Sehgal opined.
Wallace, however, said it's common knowledge that attitudes toward vaccines "are not specific to Ohio and Florida."
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Joe Gerald, associate professor of public health policy and management at the University of Arizona, who was not involved in either study, agreed that Ohio and Florida are good places to study this question, because “you have lots of and lots of people who are otherwise very similar – live in the same place, have roughly the same age distribution – but differ by party identification.”
Bodies are transferred to a refrigerator truck that serves as a temporary morgue at Wyckoff Hospital in the Borough of Brooklyn, New York, on April 6, 2020. Bryan R. Smith / AFP via Getty Images
The expert believes that vaccine acceptance rates partly explain the difference in deaths, but it is not yet clear to what extent they are responsible.
Will the partisan divide narrow?
Both Wallace and Sehgal said their studies should not be misconstrued as blaming Republicans for COVID-19 deaths.
"This is not to say: If Republicans were Democrats, they would be less likely to die," Wallace said.
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He added, however, that when it comes to the broader consequences of vaccine hesitancy, "we're talking about a lot of preventable death and morbidity."
About 20% of the US population has not yet received a single dose of the coronavirus vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Gerald predicted that the partisan gap in coronavirus deaths could narrow over time as more people get vaccinated and gain immunity, regardless of their vaccination status.
But Wallace warned that low vaccination rates could perpetuate the trend.
"Sadly, if the pandemic continues, and those differences in attitudes toward the vaccine persist, we may continue to see this kind of divide," he opined.
