The undeniable overlap of politics, vaccinations and the impact of the virus’s fourth wave

Again, though, we can see how this overlaps with vaccinations and politics — which, given increased vaccine hesitancy among Republicans, themselves overlap. During the fourth wave of infections that began on June 21, eight of the 10 states (counting D.C. as a state, for convenience’s sake) with the most new cases per capita have been ones that voted for Donald Trump last year. Nine of the 10 states with the biggest increases in hospitalizations were red states, as were eight of the 10 states with the most covid-19-related deaths during that period. (That remains true if you remove Delaware, which reported a backlog of covid-19 deaths in late July that skewed its reporting numbers. As I said: The numbers can be murky.)