Thread by @DrEricDing

📍Johns Hopkins study: States with Dem governors had higher incidence & #COVID19 deaths in March-May 2020.

➡️ but states with Republican governors surpassed D-led states rest of the year. After June 3, GOP-led states had higher incidence & more deaths. 🧵 nbcnews.com/politics/polit…

2) one reason for the change is that Democrats were in charge of states where people who had the virus first arrived in the country — but Republicans were less stringent about safeguards, which could have contributed to their states' ultimately higher incidence and death rates.

3) "The early trends could be explained by high Covid-19 cases and deaths among D-led states that are home to initial ports of entry for the virus in early 2020. However, subsequent reversal, may reflect policy differences that could have facilitated the spread of the virus."

4) “The study, published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Preventive Medicine, examined Covid-19 "incidence, death, testing, and test positivity rates from March 15 through December 15, 2020," when there were 16 million confirmed cases in the U.S. and 300,000 deaths.

5) “It focused on per-capita infection and death rates in the 26 GOP-led states and 24 Democratic-led states and Washington, D.C., and made statistical adjustments for issues such as population density.

6) But "policy differences" between the Republican and Democratic leaders emerged as a big factor for the reversal of the states' fortunes, the study suggests.

7) Figure 1

(A) COVID-19 incidence rates per 100,000 individuals by governor affiliation;

(B) adjusted RRs and 95% posterior intervals (PIs). RRs >1 indicate higher rates for Republican governors.

ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-…

8) Figure 2(A) COVID-19 death rates per 1 million individuals by governor affiliation; (B) adjusted RRs and posterior intervals (PIs). RRs >1 indicate higher rates for Republican governors.