MARCANO: Ideology is killing people

Yes, according to several academic studies — including one with Ohio data — that shows how conscious choices can have deadly consequences.

Researchers from Yale University studied deaths in Florida and Ohio and reported that Republicans had a higher “excess death” rate during COVID than Democrats. They reached that conclusion after matching deaths with voter records between January 2018 and December 2021.

Before you overreact, that doesn’t mean that Republicans caused more deaths; it means that Republicans’ actual deaths from COVID far exceeded predictions, according to the research.

The Yale study notes that attitudes about vaccinations might be the leading culprit.

“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 Democrat-leaning counties and evidence of a link between political party affiliation and vaccination views,” the report said.

The Yale study isn’t the only one that links party affiliation with increased COVID death risk. The Kaiser Family Foundation, a study in the Health Affairs journal, and an analysis by National Public Radio, among others, have made similar links.

These aren’t some one-off, wackadoodle hypotheses, but ones we need to pay far more attention to because this is life-and-death stuff.

For example, Kaiser found that 65% of people who live in counties across the county that voted for Joe Biden have been fully vaccinated compared to 52% in counties that voted for Trump. Interestingly, the same number of Biden and Trump voters (37%) have received at least one booster, indicating that you’re more likely to take additional preventative steps once you’re been vaccinated.

Most of this isn’t surprising. We’ve known since the start of the pandemic the partisan divide seeped into public health discussions and decisions. Not only were right and left yelling at each other over policy, but Republicans were berating more cautious Republicans who wanted to take stricter measures to keep people safe.

But the excess death finding isn’t just a surprise, it’s a major concern because conscious actions have led to excess deaths. That’s the big takeaway.

And, despite proclamations declaring the pandemic over, people still get sick and die daily from COVID. Look at the preliminary numbers since Jan. 1, courtesy of the Ohio Department of Health:

That’s a lot of cases and deaths that represent family, friends, and neighbors.

We’re not talking about COVID’s partisan implications enough because who wants another shouting match, especially over a virus? Besides, we’re all so over COVID.

But there are certain difficult conversations we need to have despite the pain. When we have friends and neighbors making life-altering choices often based on false assumptions, don’t we have a responsibility to at least point out the data?

The studies take the risk from abstract to concrete. It’s one thing to “think” COVID risks have been exaggerated or label mask mandates and other public health strategies government overreach; it’s another to look at the numbers and their conclusions.

Two years in, we’re now getting data that shows personal behavior and decisions have a direct impact on longevity.

The data shows how your decisions can contribute to killing you.

We all make decisions every day that can determine whether we live or die. You might decide not to wear a seatbelt, text while driving, or aimlessly walk across a busy street looking at your phone.

But here, we have science that’s done a marvelous job quickly finding a vaccine for a deadly virus and giving people a valuable tool to be safe.

That’s the difference here: We all have the means to be safe.

Luckily, in America, we’re free to decide how to live our lives. Let’s hope the decision doesn’t unnecessarily cost one.

Ray Marcano’s column appears on these pages each Sunday. He can be reached at raymarcanoddn@gmail.com.