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America transitioned out of its covid-19 mobilization the same way it transitioned in: awkwardly, unevenly and with mixed results. The Biden administration’s interest in formalizing the end of the official pandemic — under pressure from President Biden’s right — meant that systems that had been cobbled together to measure and address the problem were often just switched off, with varying downstream effects.
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Given that the tools we’d used to track the pandemic are now mostly broken or out-of-date, it’s a bit harder to know when and if the virus might again be surging. But in recent weeks, there’s been little question: wastewater measurements and other calculations made clear that infections were again rising. Hopefully, despite the shift to cooler weather in the Northeast, the recent plateau in cases means the trend is reversing.
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When KFF earlier this month asked Americans if they thought that cases were surging, however, about a third said they didn’t. That was a minority position, but the demographic divides on the question were revealing. Three-quarters of Democrats said they believed there was a new wave; most Republicans didn’t. Among those who had never been vaccinated against coronavirus, fully 6 in 10 didn’t believe there was a new wave of infections.
That unvaccinated population, of course, is disproportionately made up of Republicans.
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In other words, even when just considering the state of the pandemic, partisan differences emerge in a way that overlaps with views of the vaccine. And not just past views; that is, whether people got vaccinated in the past. KFF asked respondents whether they intended to get the newly formulated vaccine, finding that fewer than half of Americans said they did.
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But again, there’s a partisan split. Among Democrats, two-thirds of respondents said they’d been vaccinated and would get the vaccine again; a fifth said they’d been vaccinated and that was it. Among Republicans, only about a quarter had been vaccinated and would be again. Most of those who had been vaccinated didn’t plan to do it again.
The causes of this have been examined endlessly. Donald Trump’s insistence on undercutting the recommendations of health experts during 2020 — aimed at waving away the pandemic before the November election — bolstered skepticism about the vaccines for which Trump hoped to take credit. That the rollout was undertaken mostly by the Biden administration gave Trump and other Republicans, most notably Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), an additional reason to use the vaccines and vaccination efforts as a foil.
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The effects of this have also been well-examined. In Florida and Ohio, Republicans were significantly more likely to die of covid-19 after vaccines became available.
KFF’s new research shows that the skepticism about vaccines that was a spillover from doubt about medical experts has itself spilled over into other vaccination programs. KFF asked about the safety of the vaccines for covid-19, influenza and (among respondents ages 60 and over) respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Democrats were consistently more likely to say that the vaccines were safe than were Republicans. Less than half of Republicans said that the RSV or coronavirus vaccines were safe.
Predictably, Republicans were also less likely to say they planned to get vaccinated to protect against those viruses. Barely half of Republicans said they planned to get a flu shot, 25 points less than the percentage of Democrats who said they would. The gap on the coronavirus, as mentioned above, neared 50 points.
The effects here are also predictable. Fewer vaccinated individuals means more infected individuals and/or individuals contracting viruses who see worse health effects. It means that, if covid-19 or the flu or RSV surge again this winter, more people will get sicker or potentially die.
Whether or not you think those surges are happening.
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