Blue states afflicted with the most pain from COVID-19

The largest shares of coronavirus cases have appeared mostly in blue states and districts, primarily in urban metropolitan areas with large populations of minority groups.

“The places hit hardest by the coronavirus outbreak, which have relatively large shares of ethnic and racial minorities and residents living in densely populated urban and suburban areas, are almost all represented by congressional Democrats,” Bradley Jones of the Pew Research Center wrote Tuesday.

More than half of all reported COVID-19 deaths occurred in Democrat-led congressional districts. Of the 44 districts that have seen the highest fatality rates, 41 are represented by Democrats, according to data collected by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

President Trump has attempted to pin this disparity on ineffective blue state politicians. He tweeted in April, “Why should the people and taxpayers of America be bailing out poorly run states (like Illinois, as example) and cities, in all cases Democrat run and managed, when most of the other states are not looking for bailout help?”

The devastation of COVID-19 has also been disproportionately felt in minority groups that live in densely populated cities, such as New York City. Jones reported that districts with higher rates of coronavirus have higher shares of people living in urban areas.

“Nearly half (47%) of the population of districts that have been hardest hit by the coronavirus do not identify as white (while 53% of residents of these districts are white). By comparison, in the 44 districts that have the lowest coronavirus death rate, seven-in-ten residents are white,” Jones said.

Following social distancing protocols is sometimes more difficult in large cities than it is in suburbs. Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its reporting on coronavirus hitting minority groups that racial residential segregation “is linked with a variety of adverse health outcomes and underlying health conditions,” which could exacerbate a person’s risk of contracting the virus.

Still, daily case increases are declining. According to Pew, Democrat-led states are seeing sharper declines in new cases than red states and districts.

The coronavirus has been steadily moving to traditionally red states since the end of April, according to the Brookings Institution. By April 19, counties in Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi that primarily went for Trump in 2016 became “high-prevalence” counties in which coronavirus was spreading rapidly.

“For counties that reached high COVID-19 prevalence in the past three weeks, between April 20 and May 10, Trump won over 5 times more of them than [Hillary] Clinton,” said William Frey, a researcher at the Brookings Institution.

Some large cities in red states have been relatively spared, so far, such as Dallas and Houston, contributing to the impression among many Republican voters that the coronavirus is less dangerous than it is made out to be. In fact, Gallup polling found that Republicans are more likely to think that coronavirus mortality is exaggerated.

Polling reported that Republicans are 10 times more likely than Democrats to say the death count is overstated. Fifty percent of Republicans believe the mortality rate is overstated, and 31% believe it is accurately reported. Nearly three-quarters of Democrats, on the other hand, believe that the mortality rate is understated.

The coronavirus has become increasingly politicized, as evidenced by the differences between Democratic and Republican state leaders pushing to reopen their states. Georgia, led by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, was one of the first states to reopen businesses. So far, states that have advanced most in reopening, mostly those in the South and the Midwest, have not experienced a surge in new cases. All 50 states have begun to reopen, though not all of them have seen a sustained decline in new cases.

Government health experts, such as infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci and CDC Director Robert Redfield, have warned that a resurgence of cases in the fall is possible and could be more severe. Already, the United States has confirmed that more than 1.7 million people have been infected with the virus, and more than 101,000 people have died.