Thread by @charles_gaba

Hey, look at that…I’m being attacked by Glenn Greenwald! I must’ve made the big time!

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1444003333732241418

The author notes that Utah's COVID death rate ranks 45th nationally. That's true....since the beginning of the pandemic. However, my data specifically covers the period of the Delta variant, starting on July 1st, 2021...and Utah's death rate ranks 27th since then. 1/

Re. the author's final claim--that if I had focused on UTAH at the county level, the NY Times wouldn't have been interested--he might want to rethink that.

(I had to modify the bar groupings because there's no way of breaking Utah into even 10ths at the county level)

Having said that, OF COURSE age is another major factor...but seniors are also far more likely to have been VACCINATED (over 83% of all U.S. SENIORS have been fully vaxxed vs. only ~46% of those UNDER 65), which I'm pretty sure cancels some of that out.

They also criticize my work for not being peer-reviewed. This is true, it hasn't been...but I haven't claimed otherwise. They're basically criticizing me for selling them a Chevy instead of a Ferrari, except I never claimed it was a Ferrari and I don't care if they buy it anyway.

Just realised I’m basically paraphrasing a great scene from “The Russia House”:

In any event, I have no idea whether Republicans have been dying at a higher rate than Democrats the past few months or not. I *suspect* that’s the case, but it’s also possible that most of those dying in even the Reddest counties are among the 20-30% if Democrats who live there.

Of course if THAT’S the case, it’d be just as damning of GOP public healthcare policies for entirely different reasons, if not more so, since that would mean the policy in those counties is being carried out (or not) by mostly GOP local officials.

As an aside, this is the second time I’m aware of that Greenwald has referenced me. The first, ironically, is when he amusingly assumed that I was on his side during the 2016 “Bernie Bro” brouhaha.

Meanwhile, COVID has now killed 1 out of every 308 Mississipi residents, and Florida has moved up another notch to the 9th highest cumulative COVID death rate in the country.

In May they ranked 27th.

The problem w/comparing 1st wave (“Dems dying at high rates because they live in high-density urban areas!”) and this wave is WE HAVE VACCINES AND MITIGATION MEASURES AT OUR DISPOSAL NOW. If anything, sparsely populated rural areas should be practically down to 0 deaths by now…

…yet they’re raging at far higher rates now due in large part to PERSONAL AND POLICY DECISIONS. Dems still live in urban centres, GOP still live in rural areas, but their BEHAVIOUR has been different by & large, and THAT’S where partisan lean comes into play.

Does this mean the situation will remain this way going forward? Not necessarily. I’m starting to see signs that rural/red counties are beginning to catch up (slightly) on vaxx rates, primarily because the blue counties are starting to bump up against their eligibility ceilings.

As we move into colder weather up north, it’s certainly POSSIBLE that the trend line will shift back towards higher death rates in blue/urban areas again, or a new variant may arise that’s nastier than Delta. The point is that weather is outside of our control; behavior isn’t.

📣 Update: wonky thread by someone who knows more about this stuff than I do. His conclusion?

https://twitter.com/yfeyman/status/1444353968008744961

Oh, look: Here's a similar story about how COVID is ravaging "rural" America at twice the rate as "urban" America, and it doesn't go mention any other "confounders" like age either. I guess @RUPRIHealth are just a bunch of hacks as well, right?

https://twitter.com/charles_gaba/status/1444447155587108864

My "simplistic" study: Tracks COVID death rates by county partisan lean.

The University of Iowa College of Public Health's "more nuanced discussion of multiple factors at play": Tracks COVID death rates by county urban/rural status.

(I'm not criticizing them, mind you)