Republicans in Florida and Ohio who contracted coronavirus were 76% more likely to die of Covid than Democrats who contracted the disease because they refused to get vaccinated or take measures to protect themselves from the virus, a new study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research asserts.

“Political affiliation has emerged as a potential risk factor for COVID-19, amid evidence that Republican-leaning counties have had higher COVID-19 death rates than Democratic-leaning counties and evidence of a link between political party affiliation and vaccination views,” the study, done by researchers from Yale’s public health and business schools, states.

Linking the 2017 voter registration records of 577,659 people age 25 or older who died between January 2018 and December 2021, researchers calculated the “excess death rate”–that is, the number of additional people who died over that time period versus what was statistically likely.  Comparing the number of deaths from the period after the vaccine was introduced to the numbers of people before the pandemic and in the early stages of the pandemic before a vaccine was available, researchers then looked at the mortality rates for the period after vaccines were introduced. 

Taking into account factors such as geography and age, researchers found that political affiliation became the primary identifiable variant explaining the excessively high difference between people who survived a bout with coronavirus versus those who didn’t, with most of the Republican fatalities not getting vaccinated.

After vaccines were widely available in 2021, the difference in the rate of excess deaths between Republicans and Democrats broadens significantly, with the delta approaching 20% in December 2021.  A Kaiser Family Foundation study found just 65% of Republicans have gotten a coronavirus vaccine, versus 91% of Democrats and 75% of independents.  Nearly one-third of Republicans report they refuse get a vaccine, with nearly all of them saying nothing will change their mind on the issue.