Will the 2024 election be about vaccines?

They will nominate the Republicans Donald Trump as president?

Or will they resort to Ron DeSantis instead?

I haven’t the faintest idea.

What I do know is that anyone who imagines the governor of Florida as a more reasonable and sane figure than Trump — a right-wing populist without the paranoia to deny reality — is delusional.

DeSantis hasn’t fallen into the same traps as Trump, but he has walked into some of his, and his descent has been just as profound.

Above all, DeSantis is increasingly becoming the face of conspiracy theories of vaccines, which have turned a medical miracle into a source of bitter partisan division and have contributed to thousands of needless deaths.

Let’s go back and talk about the history of COVID-19 vaccines so far.

In the spring of 2020, the US government started the Warp Speed ​​Operationa public-private partnership aimed at developing effective coronavirus vaccines as quickly as possible.

The effort was successful:

In December 2020, long before almost anyone imagined possible, vaccinations were underway.

(I got my first shot the following month on January 28, 2021.)

And yes, this was a success for the Trump administration.

Did the vaccines work?

And how.

There are several ways to evaluate its life-saving effect, but I’m particularly impressed with a simple approach pioneered by analyst Charles Gaba, who examines the correlation across US counties between vaccination rates and COVID mortality rates. .

Between May 2021, when the two-dose vaccination became widespread, and September, the least vaccinated 10% of counties suffered a lower death rate. more than three times higher to that of the most vaccinated.

Now, you may have heard that right now deaths among vaccinated Americans outnumber those of the unvaccinated, which is true.

But that’s partly because most deaths occur among the elderly, the vast majority of whom are vaccinated; very few Americans have not received any vaccinations; and not enough vaccinated people getting booster doses.

But why are some US counties so much less vaccinated than others?

The answer, as Gaba shows, is the partisanship:

There’s a surprisingly close relationship between the percentage of voters in a county who supported Trump in 2020 and the percentage of residents in that county who didn’t get their shots — and the percentage who died from COVID.

By the way, the same patterns can be seen at the level of whole states.

For example, while New York was hit hard in the first few months of the pandemic (before we knew how the coronavirus spread or what precautions to take), they’ve died from COVID since May 2021 more than twice as many people in Florida as in New York.

Even accounting for Florida’s slightly older and much older population, that’s thousands more deaths in the Sunshine State.

However, why should vaccination be a biased issue?

Right-wing opposition to lockdowns and social distancing in the early stages of the pandemic made at least some sense, since these public health measures involved requiring people to make some sacrifices to protect other people’s lives.

(Some will say that civilization is based on this kind of sacrifice, but that doesn’t matter).

Mask mandates also required accepting some discomfort, at least in part for the sake of others.

But getting vaccinated is above all protecting yourself.

Why wouldn’t you?

The immediate answer is the widespread belief on the right that vaccines have terrible side effects.

This belief is difficult to justify:

If true, shouldn’t there be plenty of evidence for such claims given that more than 13 billion doses have been administered worldwide?

Ah, but the usual suspects say sinister elites are suppressing evidence.

Which brings us back to DeSantis, who announced Tuesday that he was forming a state committee for against recommendations of federal health policy — and calling for a grand jury investigation of unspecified “felonies and misdemeanors” related to coronavirus vaccines.

Of course, I doubt anyone believes DeSantis knows or cares about the scientific evidence here.

What you are doing instead is please to a Republican base that equates listening to experts, in public health or otherwise, with “wokeness” and demonizes anyone who says things they don’t want to hear.

As far as I know, DeSantis did not join Elon Musk request treatment Antonio Fauci, who has spearheaded America’s response to COVID.

But he called Fauci a “leprechaun” and said we should “throw him across the Potomac.” (Presidential!)

Now, will DeSantis’ attempt to position himself as the leader of the anti-vaccine movement and give at least tacit endorsement to conspiracy theories really endear the Republican base?

Again, I don’t know.

Even if he did, I suspect it would hurt him in the general election if he becomes the candidate:

Vaccine paranoia and Fauci’s hatred remain niche positions in the general electorate.

But anyone who imagines that replacing Trump with DeSantis as GOP leader would be a sign that the party is about to come to its senses is in trouble. Hard blow.

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