Red states are dangerous to Americans’ health - The Washington Post

We have plenty of fault lines in America, including those having to do with race, religion and class. Now, we have a fault line based on the willful refusal to embrace science. This is not an academic issue; it will kill many Americans. Others will experience long-term side effects.

Bloomberg reports: “Covid-19 transmission is accelerating in several poorly vaccinated states, primarily in the South plus Missouri and Utah, and more young people are turning up at hospitals. The data present the clearest sign of a rebound in the U.S. in months.” This failure seems to be the result of rotten, red-state governments that routinely fail to meet the needs of its people, a toxic MAGA culture that spurns scientific expertise, and a self-destructive, right-wing media that discourages rational thinking.

Certainly, an evangelical Christian movement that embraces conspiracy theories and refuses to hold people accountable for their actions also plays a role. Peter Wehner, a former adviser to President George W. Bush and an evangelical Christian, explains in an essay for the New York Times: “What is ripping through many Southern Baptist churches these days — and it’s not confined to Southern Baptist churches — is a topic that went unmentioned at the annual convention last week: QAnon conspiracy theories.”

Wehner adds:

According to a recent poll by the conservative American Enterprise Institute, nearly a third of white evangelical Christian Republicans — 31 percent — believe in the accuracy of the QAnon claim that “Donald Trump has been secretly fighting a group of child sex traffickers that include prominent Democrats and Hollywood elites.” White evangelicals are far more likely to embrace conspiracy theories than nonwhite evangelicals.

This is nothing short of a social pathology, not to mention a crisis for these faith-based communities. But it’s also a public health issue, as QAnon adherents have a disproportionate rate of vaccine rejection.

Conservative media, which has at best been inconsistent in its covid-19 coverage, shares responsibility here, as well. A recent poll from the Public Religion Research Institute finds: Majorities of Republicans who trust mainstream news sources (58 percent) or Fox News (54 percent) are vaccine accepters. By contrast, only about 3 in 10 Republicans who trust far-right news sources such as Newsmax or One America News (32 percent) or no television news (30 percent) are vaccine accepters.

Natalie Jackson, who serves as research director for PRRI, explained during a recent expert panel discussion that “among Republicans, news consumption really matters.” She also noted that “there is a reasonably strong association between QAnon theory beliefs and vaccine hesitancy and refusal.” Rather than addressing real threats to their lives, these communities generate fear of racial replacement, resentment toward elites and the belief they are facing religious discrimination.

The results are stunning. Bloomberg reports: “In Missouri, Arkansas and Utah, the seven-day average of hospital admissions with confirmed covid-19 has increased more than 30% in the past two weeks. . . . In Mississippi, the hospitalization rate is up 5% in the period.” This means more hospitalizations — which Bloomberg notes is “particularly jarring among 18- to 29-year-olds in the outlier states” — and ultimately more deaths. As Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said this week, every one of these deaths is preventable. Unvaccinated Americans are at risk of infection from all covid-19 variants, including the particularly virulent delta variant.

Part of the problem is that vaccine hesitancy is associated with low levels of education, which is more prevalent in the South. But that only confirms that red states are not providing basic services to protect their residents.

In a real sense, these communities are a world apart from the rest of America. Jackson said of hardcore vaccine rejecters: “They have a set of attitudes toward the virus that is quite different from the rest of the country. They overwhelmingly feel like the seriousness of the pandemic has been exaggerated in the news. . . . They’re less likely to say they wear masks when they go out in public.”

In other words, a significant segment of Americans lives in a make-believe world. They are convinced that the election was stolen and that their cult leader is the legitimate president. That mind-set is a clear threat to our democracy, but it also appears to be dangerous to its adherents’ health and survival. Their delusions hurt all Americans, but no group more than the MAGA cult in the South.

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Red states are dangerous to Americans’ health - The Washington Post
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