MUCH HAS been made of President Donald Trump’s delayed response to the covid-19 pandemic. After initially dismissing concerns about the virus, Mr Trump promised, and then failed to deliver, millions of testing kits; in recent days he has taken to quarrelling with Democrats over deliveries of life-saving medical equipment. Yet the president is not an outlier. Apart from the federal government, many state and local governments have also dragged their feet.
The authors find that on any given day during the epidemic, Republican governors have been 42% less likely than Democratic ones to mandate social-distancing measures. When they have implemented such policies, they have done so two days later, on average. In the most conservative states—those where Mr Trump won at least 58% of the vote in the 2016 presidential election—these measures were delayed for an additional day.
Other factors, such as the number of cases a state has, how poor it is and whether its neighbouring states had passed social-distancing orders had much smaller effects. As of April 2nd half of the states that Hillary Clinton won in 2016 had enacted at least ten social-distancing policies; in states that went for Mr Trump only one-quarter had put a similar number in place.
Some analysts reckon that population density may be distorting the picture. Americans in rural areas, the argument goes, are both more likely to vote for Republicans and less likely to have contact with people who may be exposed to diseases. What appears to be a partisan disparity in how governments are responding to the crisis may just be the reflection of differing demographic profiles.
Well, since Covid-19 hit the coasts first and hardest, and the coasts are mostly left-leaning, it makes sense they were first to respond. State like Idaho and some of the interior southern states, didn’t get hit very hard at first. This has nothing to do with politics.
For the moment; the virus is still largely within blue areas, not red ones.
A majority of the numbers in Rep Gov states have been lower and slower pace than Dem Gov states. Im independent and I didn’t vote for trump. But I think it’s important to know this.
. GOP governors need to glad-hand everyone possible.
COVIDIOTS
Simply put. Everyone discounted this until it got really real to them. I would say GOP governors are following that curve. Rather than apply partisan lenses
I would look at early responses from New York and differ. While I don't like slow responses, we could also point to the fact that NY and NJ seem hardest hit, and maybe that doesn't justify lockdowns... How do you 'mandate' social distancing,
And how much a function of 'rural vs urban' and 'infections vs none yet' is that?
It will soon be clear which constituency has been better served by its elected leaders, and the metric will be the number of dead citizens because the virus don't care which party you support
Blind base includes GOP.
Go figure. It’s a partisanpandemic
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