Heavy Trump-voting counties have 'more than three times higher' Covid rate than Biden counties: report

Counties that voted heavily for former President Donald Trump in 2020 have more than triple the infection rate for Covid-19 compared to counties that voted heavily for President Joe Biden, according to a new review of data.

The New York Timesreported on Monday that infections in pro-Trump counties are quickly escalating past the levels seen in Biden counties.

As the report noted, red and blue areas of the country saw similar infection rates at the end of 2020.

"There simply was not a strong partisan pattern to Covid during the first year that it was circulating in the U.S.," the Times said.

But that all changed as Americans were given access to Covid-19 vaccines.

"They proved so powerful, and the partisan attitudes toward them so different, that a gap in Covid's death toll quickly emerged," Times columnist David Leonhardt wrote. "The gap in Covid's death toll between red and blue America has grown faster over the past month than at any previous point."

The report found that by October of this year, the infection rate in counties that heavily voted for Trump are "more than three times higher than the rate in heavily Biden counties."

"This situation is a tragedy, in which irrational fears about vaccine side effects have overwhelmed rational fears about a deadly virus. It stems from disinformation — promoted by right-wing media, like Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, the Sinclair Broadcast Group and online sources — that preys on the distrust that results from stagnant living standards," Leonhardt concluded.