Partisan differences in physical distancing are linked to health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Numerous polls suggest that COVID-19 is a profoundly partisan issue in the United States. Using the geotracking data of 15 million smartphones per day, we found that US counties that voted for Donald Trump (Republican) over Hillary Clinton (Democrat) in the 2016 presidential election exhibited 14% less physical distancing between March and May 2020. Partisanship was more strongly associated with physical distancing than numerous other factors, including counties' COVID-19 cases, population density, median income, and racial and age demographics. Contrary to our predictions, the observed partisan gap strengthened over time and remained when stay-at-home orders were active. Additionally, county-level consumption of conservative media (Fox News) was related to reduced physical distancing. Finally, the observed partisan differences in distancing were associated with subsequently higher COVID-19 infection and fatality growth rates in pro-Trump counties. Taken together, these data suggest that US citizens' responses to COVID-19 are subject to a deep-and consequential-partisan divide.

Compliance without fear: Individual‐level protective behaviour during the first wave of the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…For institutional trust, the inconsistent and weak correlations between protective behaviour and institutional trust may be viewed as welcome news. According to the present data, political views and polarization does not necessarily jeopardize compliance in the outbreak of a massive global crisis like a pandemic, although it may naturally influence compliance at later stages (see Gollwitzer et al, 2020).…”

“…Thus, in a democracy, compliance with public advice and policy is a function of citizen discretion, and, hence the authorities must rely on persuasion and voluntary compliance (Tyler & Jackson, 2014). Influence via communication requires an understanding of the psychology that this communication should tap into (Bonell et al 2020; Van Bavel et al 2020;West, Michie, Rubin, & Amlôt, 2020). For democratic governments' success in handling both the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and potential future pandemics, it is key to understand the psychological correlates that motivated citizens to comply with public health advice in the initial drastic phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

To What Extent Does In-Person Schooling Contribute to the Spread of COVID-19? Evidence from Michigan and Washington

“…13 Additionally, teachers unions, which have more power in blue states where mask-wearing and social distancing are more prevalent (Allcott et al, 2020;Katz et al, 2020), have opposed what they see as "reckless re-openings" and threatened strikes in response to planned re-openings (Cassella et al, 2020). physical distancing amidst the pandemic, and that political ideology matters more for the use of COVID mitigation strategies than other factors such as COVID rates and demographic characteristics (Adolph et al, 2020;Brenan, 2020;Clinton et al, 2020;Gollwitzer et al, 2020;Grossman et al, 2020;Schneider, 2020;Van Kessel & Quinn, 2020). Yet these same communities, on average, have higher rates of COVID-19 infection and death (Jones & Kiley, 2020).…”

COVID-19 and Social Distancing: Disparities in Mobility Adaptation by Income

“…Furthermore, the analyses supported what some nationwide studies have also claimed: higher income is associated with larger mobility reductions. Since preceding nationwide studies used aggregated location data to compare mobility across a nation (Dasgupta et al, 2020;Gollwitzer et al, 2020;Weill et al, 2020), it is noteworthy the disparity in mobility adaptation was observed among different income groups within a metropolitan statistical area where uniform executive orders were enforced.…”