Covid-19 and Misinformation: Two Epidemics At Once
I used data from the New York Times to analyze the relationship between the percent of a county’s residents who voted for President Donald Trump in the most recent presidential election and the number of covid-19 cases per 100,000 people in the county as compared to the total for the state. First, I randomly selected a total of 50 states and counties, and then I found the New York Times’ data on each county’s vote totals and covid-19 cases. Next, I found the correlation coefficient between the number of covid-19 cases per 100,000 people and the percent of the vote that went to Donald Trump in that county in 2020. These two variables had a correlation of 0.80212 for the 50 data points I analyzed. A correlation of .8 or higher is considered a strong correlation traditionally in statistics.
In order to try to determine whether or not this correlation was representative of the population, I repeated the same experiment with 50 other randomly chosen states and counties. This time, the correlation was 0.7996. If I had more time, I would repeat this same analysis on a larger scale using data for all of the counties in the United States. Sadly, this is not viable for me to do right now. However, my limited analysis suggests that there is a strong positive correlation between the prevalence of covid-19 in a population and the percent of that population that supports Donald Trump.
Unfortunately, I could not find any data on the percent of the population that wears masks in public, practices social distancing, and generally takes medically and scientifically proven precautions to try to mitigate the spread of covid-19 in each county. However, I think that it is fairly safe to assume that people who are supporters of Donald Trump are more likely to approve of the President’s handling of the pandemic and his lack of support for masking and social distancing, despite the fact that these practices been proven to be very effective against the spread of covid-19 (1).
Viruses spread through the air and on surfaces while opinions and information are spread through relationships, news outlets, and social media. Just as a virus can spread in a certain geographical population, opinions and beliefs can spread among demographics and populations that share an online space or live in the same location. In fact, part of the reason why political opinions seem to be so heavily influenced by geography is not only the political history of a place, but also the fact that people tend to conform in behavior and beliefs to those around them (2).
62% of Republicans and 9% of Democrats at least partially get their news from Fox News (3). Fox has been shown to have promoted incorrect information about the coronavirus, and as a result, anyone who watches Fox is more likely to believe false information about the severity of the virus and how to effectively prevent its spread (4). Since Republicans are much more likely to be Trump supporters and to watch Fox News, then they are also more likely to believe and promote false information told to them by Fox News and Republican leaders. In fact, people who identify as “conservative” or “very conservative” are almost two times as likely to spread information that has been proven false on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter than users who identify as “very liberal” or “very leftist” (5). This is disturbing not only because it represents deep divisions in American society and a lack of common ground in the midst of a global disaster, but also because these facts have very real-world consequences.
People born from 1925 to 1945 make up the largest demographic group of Republicans (6), and this group is also the most at risk for serious complications or death due to covid (7). People in this demographic are the same people who are most likely to believe that wearing masks does not prevent the spread of covid-19 and that the coronavirus is “like a regular flu,” (8). Because of this, they are at the highest risk of any demographic group to spread covid-19 and to end up with serious long-term consequences or end up dying from covid-19.
Misinformation that is spread through divided and polarized political channels is a major reason why the United States has had the most covid-19 cases of any country in the world and the 11th most deaths per capita. I wish I could end this on a hopeful note. I wish I could say that the data looks promising, and that we can stop the spread of covid-19 and the spread of misinformation. However, I don’t think I feel confident that any of that is true.
- https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-about-masks-heres-science-behind-how-face-masks-prevent
- https://www.statesmanshs.org/707/features/does-culture-influence-our-beliefs/
- https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2019/3/23/the-fox-news-bubble
- www.washingtonpost.com › media › 2020/06/26
- https://www.colorado.edu/today/2020/06/17/who-shares-most-fake-news-new-study-sheds-light
- https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/20/1-trends-in-party-affiliation-among-demographic-groups/
- https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/older-adults.html
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/09/10/all-the-times-trump-compared-covid-19-to-the-flu-even-after-he-knew-covid-19-was-far-more-deadly/?sh=748c020bf9d2
- Picture: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/republicans-and-democrats-see-covid-19-very-differently-is-that-making-people-sick/