Two questions arose as the country has been hammered by the coronavirus known as COVID-19; Which counties have the highest per capita rates of COVID-19 cases, and which have the highest per capita rates of deaths?
With a year of COVID-19 statistics behind us, the stats compiled by Johns Hopkins University are in. Colorado is in the unenviable position in the data of having the country’s #1 and the #3 counties (both rural) on the list for COVID-19 incidence per 100,000 population:
#1 Crowley County
#3 Bent County
While that in and of itself would be concerning enough, there is more. It seems that there is indeed more incidence of COVID-19 cases and deaths in red counties versus blue counties.
Johns Hopkins has tracked discernable differences in COVID-19 deaths per capita based upon a county’s political majorities. Every county except those in Alaska reflects the 2020 Biden/Trump partisan lean (Alaska used the 2016 Clinton/Trump comparison);
Not only do statistics show a majority of the nation’s counties with higher COVID-19 statistics to be Republican-led, but the statistics month over month appear to show a startling rise in deaths following what could be called Trump campaign super spreader events.
Trump rally in Cambria County. PA. on Oct. 13, 2020. AP photo by Gene Puskar.
One example: Trump held his rally in Cambria County, PA (pop 130,000) nears Johnstown on Oct. 13, 2020. As of that date, the county had a total of seven COVID-19 related deaths.
It was one of the first stops on his resumed campaign following his COVID-19 diagnosis at the beginning of the month.
A maskless Trump disembarked from Air Force One at the airport just after 7:30 p.m., shaking hands with the crowd as he made his way to the podium.
As of Friday, Feb. 5, Cambria County had 369 COVID-19 related deaths. In the space of four months, this very red county went from one of Pennsylvania’s safest counties to one of its deadliest counties.
What difference can be noted between red counties and blue counties? Could it be the willingness of residents to follow some simple public health parameters like wearing face masks, social distancing, frequent hand-washing, quarantining, and isolating when exposure to COVID-19 may have happened?
According to health experts, most states and counties, continue to reflect undercounted numbers because they aren’t doing anywhere near enough COVID-19 testing.
The increase in COVID-19 variants may indicate an even great risk. Genetic testing on the positive COVID-19 testing samples in Florida now indicating that 20 percent of the COVID-19 in Florida is the much more infectious and much more lethal Brazilian variant. At the moment, the variants in Colorado appear to be the (relatively) more mild UK variant. But as these more violent variants rolls across the country, concerns may grow.
In Chaffee County, public health has charted a fiesty course that has tended to be more independent, encouraging testing, acquiring testing supplies, and rather than waiting for the state to act, creating its own COVID-19 vaccine scheduler.
The county has also shifted from red to purple, to outright Democratic party blue in recent years, which given the country’s statistics, might be its own protection. Only time will tell.
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