Yale University researchers found that registered Republicans
had a higher rate of excess deaths than Democrats in the months
following when vaccines became available for all adults in April
2021.
The study does not directly attribute the deaths to covid-19.
Instead, excess mortality refers to the overall rate of deaths
exceeding what would be expected from historical trends.
The study examined the deaths of 538,139 people 25 years and older in Florida and Ohio, between January 2018 and December 2021, with researchers linking them to party registration records. Researchers found the excess death rate for Republicans and Democrats was about the same at the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
Both parties experienced a sharp but similar increase in excess deaths the following winter.
But after April 2021, the gap in excess death rates emerged, with the rate for Republicans 7.7 percentage points higher than the rate for Democrats. For Republicans, that translated into a 43 percent increase in excess deaths.
