Republican Counties Have Largest COVID Spikes

 

Coronavirus cases are starting to spike in most of the country, just as votes are being cast in the lead- up to November 3, and as "crazy uncle" COVID Donnie continues to hold mass, mask- less rallies and tell his cult that masks don't protect them:

For the first time since early August, the number of newly reported coronavirus infections in the United States on Thursday topped 60,000. More than 36,000 people are hospitalized nationally with covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, amid a long-feared autumnal rise of infections and serious illnesses.

This is not a regional crisis, but instead one that is intensifying almost everywhere in the country. Forty-four states and the District of Columbia have higher caseloads than in mid-September. The virus is spreading in rural communities in the heartland, far from the coastal cities hammered early in the pandemic.

There are a number of reasons why "crazy uncle" COVID Donnie doesn't want Americans to take basic health precautions to slow the spread of the virus, but they all eventually lead back to his sociopathy and raging narcissism.  Because his cult members (and they are a cult)  trust him more than they trust the medical experts and scientists, they're becoming victims of their own blind stupidity:

The effects of the coronavirus have been strikingly pronounced in recent weeks in Republican-leaning counties, according to a new analysis of health data from Harvard University researchers that compares the latest number of cases and deaths to county-level voting patterns in the last presidential election.

The research, which has not been peer-reviewed, shows that “red” counties with the most intense leanings toward Republicans have had the largest recent increases in cases, while “blue” counties that lean Democratic have tended recently to be flat.

“The redder it is, the more it goes up. The bluer it is, the more it stays flat,” said Nancy Krieger, an epidemiologist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and lead author of the paper.  (our emphasis)

Being in a science- denying political cult during a deadly pandemic turns out to be a very dangerous choice.  Who could possibly have guessed?

BONUS:  Infidel 753 has more on this phenomenon.

(Photo:  Breathe deeply!  COVID Donnie cultists in North Carolina; AP)