New data analysis has revealed that if US Democratic voters were to make up their own country, it would have one of the world’s most vaccinated populations, with more than 91% of adults having received at least one shot.
Meanwhile, approximately 60% of Republican adults have received their first shot, according to data research by the New York Times.
And the gap in Covid’s death toll between “blue” states that vote mostly Democratic and “red” states that vote mostly Republican this fall widened more quickly than at any previous point of the pandemic.
A total of 25 out of every 100,000 residents in counties that voted for Donald Trump died of Covid in October, compared with the 7.8 per 100,000 in counties that voted heavily for Biden, according to the data analysis from the Times.
October marked the fifth consecutive month that the percentage gap of death rates in red and blue counties widened.
Charles Gaba, an independent health care analyst, said that in October, the “reddest” tenth of the US saw death rates from coronavirus six times higher than the “bluest” tenth.
“Those numbers have dropped slightly in recent weeks,” he told National Public Radio. “It’s back down to 5.5 times higher.”
Counties where Trump received more than 70% of the vote experienced an even higher average of Covid-19 deaths compared with counties where Trump won at least 60%, the new data research revealed.
By contrast, Covid-19 deaths in heavily Biden counties and swing counties did not rise over the past two months, despite the nationwide surge in cases.
In a press briefing on Friday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki reiterated the importance of Covid-19 precautionary measures and vaccines.
When asked about whether Biden will change his holiday plans and encourage Americans to think twice about doing anything special for the holiday break, she said: “We know that vaccines work, we know testing works … We know masking works … so we’re going to continue to double down on the steps and the approaches that we know have been effective to date.”
Earlier this week, the US death toll from Covid-19 passed 800,000, marking the highest reported toll of any country in the world.
The US accounts for approximately 4% of the world’s population but about 15% of the 5.3m known deaths from the coronavirus since the outbreak began in China two years ago.