Far more people die of COVID-19 as many voted for Trump than many voted for Biden – NRK Urix – Foreign News & Documentaries

1,493 people were reported to have died of covid-19 in the United States on Wednesday, September 10th.

That number is far from the worst of days in January of this year, when 3,500 people died every day.

At the same time, the numbers were much worse than they were this summer, when daily death rates fell for a period below 300.

Three times higher in risk

The New York Times Take a closer look at where the Corona pandemic claimed the most lives in the United States in October.

The numbers show that there is a clear relationship between what county (county) residents voted for in last year’s presidential election, and the number who have now died from the coronavirus.

• In counties where at least 60 percent voted for Trump, 25 out of every 100,000 people died.
• In counties where at least 60 percent voted for Biden, 7.8 per 100,000 residents died.

This indicates that the risk of death from the Corona virus is three times higher in “Trump country” as it is in “Biden country”.

It started in democracies

When the pandemic first came to the United States, the picture was different. At that time, it particularly affected the states of New York and New Jersey. In March and April of last year, more than half of all infections in the United States were in the two states.

These are the states in which Biden beat Trump by 23 and 16 percentage points, respectively, in the presidential election.

A few months later, the epidemic spread across the country, most of them infected in the southern states and the Midwest, areas with stable majority Republicans.

By December of last year, the differences had largely settled, and the death toll was relatively similar across the United States.

Then the vaccines came

The United States was one of the first countries to be vaccinated. While Democratic politicians almost unanimously supported vaccines, many Republicans said they were skeptical.

This made a huge difference in the number of people being vaccinated. numbers from Our world in data It appears that the number of vaccinations is 30-40 percent higher in states where Biden clearly won than Trump clearly did.

The result was already that In June, the New York Times wrote that the virus infects the most In Trump-friendly countries.

Now this trend has grown more clearly and October is the month with the most noticeable difference.

The result is that the United States now has the highest mortality rate among Western European and North American countries.

In the past two weeks, the risk of dying from the coronavirus has been five times greater in the United States as it is in countries such as Spain, France and Italy. For Norway, the risk in the United States is ten times greater.

Signals from politicians are important

Norwegian health authorities were not surprised by the New York Times’ findings.

– It’s not surprising. This is a trend that has been seen for a long time. This shows that vaccinations and dressings are important, assistant director of health, Espen Rostrop Nakstad, tells NRK.

FHI leader Camilla Stoltenberg believes the numbers from the US show how important attitudes are.

– This shows that the signals that political leaders send are important, says Stoltenberg, to the NRK.