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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow political polarization broke America's vaccine campaign
The USs partisan divides have left much of the country vulnerable to Covid-19 leading to unnecessary deaths.
The Covid-19 epidemic in the United States risks becoming a tale of two Americas, as Anthony Fauci warned in June: a nation where regions with higher vaccination rates are able to beat back the coronavirus, while those with lower vaccination rates continue to see cases and deaths.
At face value, its a division between those who are vaccinated and those who are unvaccinated. But, increasingly, its also a division between Democrats and Republicans as vaccination has ended up on one of the biggest dividing lines in the US, political polarization.
Polarization, of course, is not a new force in American life. Growing polarization doesnt just mean a Congress more starkly dividing between left and right; it means peoples political views now closely hew with views on seemingly unrelated issues, like which movies should win Oscars. But throughout the pandemic, polarization has manifested as stark differences in how Democrats and Republicans each approach Covid-19, from hand-washing to social distancing to masking.
That polarization has now opened political rifts in vaccination rates, with peoples decision to get a shot or not today a better predictor of states electoral outcomes than their votes in prior elections. Its led the USs vaccination campaign to hit a wall, missing President Joe Bidens July 4 goal. Meanwhile, the more infectious delta variant is spreading, raising the risk of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths in unvaccinated and often heavily Republican areas.
To put it bluntly: Polarization is killing people.
F around and find out, vaccine edition.
CrispyQ
(36,231 posts)The vac is out there for anyone who wants one & is of age. We didn't not make the goal because there weren't enough shots to go around. Frickin' liberal media.
IronLionZion
(45,261 posts)Now the pandemic has more community spread and local outbreaks where lots of unvaccinated people are. So several church groups and summer camps have had outbreaks this year where like-minded people were hanging out together.
Other countries wish they had access to the vaccines that many Americans are choosing to avoid.
msongs
(67,199 posts)Pobeka
(4,999 posts)When they realized they couldn't win with facts, lies and polarization were the tools they had to turn to to remain in power.
Media consolidation has only made it worse.
luckone
(21,646 posts)But this new political attachment to vaccines (FDT) has really accelerated the percentage of people refusing it now making it difficult for usa to get rid of covid
Good read
From link
It didnt have to be this way. Perceptions about Covid-19 werent too divided by political party very early on in the pandemic. And while Americas peers around the world certainly saw political debates and conflicts over Covid-19, they by and large managed to avoid the level of polarization that the US has seen, with other nations working across political lines to take the virus seriously and suppress it.
Again FDT and his repug tailcoat goons