It appears that Republican anti-vax and anti-mask campaigns are having an immediate impact on Covid-19 death rates, and that phenomenon could have a long term impact on the demographic composition of the United States. “NPR looked at deaths per 100,000 people in roughly 3,000 counties across the U.S. from May 2021, the point at which vaccinations widely became available. People living in counties that went 60% or higher for Trump in November 2020 had 2.7 times the death rates of those that went for Biden. Counties with an even higher share of the vote for Trump saw higher COVID-19 mortality rates.”

Correlation between vaccination rates, Covid-19 deaths, and support for the Former Guy via NPR.

The NPR study confirms projections of increased death rates in pro-Trump counties that have circulated over the past several months. Polling from the Kaiser Family Foundation has shown that white Republican adults have the lowest vaccination rate of any demographic. The NPR study also declares that misinformation circulated via right-wing media outlets and social media sites like Facebook, appears to be the primary culprit for driving anti-vax and anti-mask conspiracy theories.

The findings from the NPR study are also consistent with results from vaccine hesitancy studies in the fields of behavioral science and general internal medicine.

The Republican disinformation campaign appears to be a self-inflicted demographic wound, as the Delta variant resulted in a growing number of Covid19 deaths and disabilities among white Republicans in their 20s and 30s either dying or suffering permanent respiratory damage.  That trend suggests the possibility of an acceleration of the “Browning of America“. It is ironic that a party that has been increasingly bold about promoting nationalist conspiracy theories about “the great replacement“, have engaged in a disinformation campaign that has rapidly accelerated that trend.