The Unusual COVID-19 Political Phenomenon

On March 25, 2020, American Thinker published a pilot article titled: “Political structure of coronavirus victims: Which party is in power by state,” in which, for the first time, a very unusual phenomenon was observed.  In particular, this article analyzed how the Chinese coronavirus cases in the United States are split among Democrat-governed and Republican-governed states.  The easily trackable party affiliation of a state’s governor was used as a criterion.

To everybody’s surprise, for each coronavirus case in Republican-governed states, there are approximately four (!) coronavirus cases in Democrat-governed states.  For example, the ratio for March 24, 2020, was 83% vs. 17%. We are talking here about the relative, not the absolute numbers of coronavirus cases. In other words, we analyze the number of cases in Republican-governed or Democrat-governed states divided by the total number of cases.

To analyze this phenomenon further, we calculated the percentage of COVID-19 cases for Democrat-governed states and Republican-governed states for the entire month of March.  The historical data source used was the USA Facts.   The chart below shows the results.

At the beginning of the month, 93% of all cases in the United States were in Democrat-controlled states, with the remaining 7% of cases being in Republican-controlled states.  However, the last three weeks of March demonstrate that the situation has reached some sort of stabilization around 80% and 20% for Democrat-controlled and Republican-controlled states, respectively.  In other words, the 4-to-1 ratio has existed for the last three weeks, and this distribution is remarkably stable.  Before the second week of March, the data was incomplete/sporadic. 

Most likely, the epidemic in the United States originated in the state of Washington (governed by a Democrat) on January 19, 2020.  It was a pure chance; on that date, the chart values were 100% for the D line (in blue), and 0% for the R line.  After that date, the coronavirus infection spread to other states.  The process of the spread was random and chaotic; the Republican-governed states were eventually affected, and as the D line started to go down, the R line started to go up. 

Based on the chart, the initial stages of the coronavirus spread in the United States had ended sometime during the second week of March (this is why the chart only shows data since the beginning of March).  Anything one could think of that factors in affecting the speed of the spread of infection – density of population, international travel, public transportation, weather, the embarrassing deficit of test kits, etc., – had played their role by the end of the second week of March. 

By that time, coronavirus had penetrated every state, and could no longer spread by the quick acquisition of “new territories.” After that, the initial process of spreading the virus became saturated.  In other words, the current 4-to-1 ratio is not just a one-day anomaly; its existence is a manifestation of some unknown underlying virus-related process. 

Moreover, the statistics of the attributed to coronavirus deaths (not shown on the chart above) meticulously follow the statistics of the coronavirus cases, with the same 4-to-1 ratio.

Most intriguing is the fact that theoretically, the ratio of coronavirus victims must reflect the distribution of the Unites States population between Republican-controlled and Democrat-controlled states, i.e., in the year 2020, the proportion should be approximately 46% vs. 54%, respectively.  However, it is not. 

To confirm the theoretical case of 46% vs. 54%, we analyzed the CDC data for the 2018-2019 flu season (due to elections in some states, the party affiliation of several Governors has changed).  The flu statistics in the United States were split between Republican-controlled and Democrat-controlled states suitably, as 45% vs. 55%.  One percent difference from the theoretical values has a simple explanation – the CDC data, for some unknown reason, does not include Florida flu statistics.  This similar ratio existed for the flu season two years ago as well; the 2017-2018 flu season had proportions of 42% vs. 58% (again, without Florida statistics).

The 2018-2019 and 2017-2018 flu seasons are over.  The flu season of 2019-2020 is not, and it runs in parallel with coronavirus pandemics.  As of the end of March 2020, the CDC data for the still running 2019-2020 flu season has 43% vs. 57% split of patients between Republican-controlled and Democrat-controlled states.  No doubt, at the conclusion of the current flu season, the numbers will be close to the theoretical values, reflecting population distribution between Republican and Democrat state administrations.

The presented data analysis clearly shows the anomaly of the current coronavirus propagation in the United States. 

The regular flu seasons produce a well-understandable approximate 1-to1 ratio of the virus patients between Democrat and Republican governed states, but the Chinese coronavirus patients have an abnormal 4-to-1 ratio.

The ratio is so stable that it requires a sudden, massive, and catastrophic spread of coronavirus infection among only the Republican-governed population to bring the ratio to the expected constant values at the end of the pandemic.  Chances of such an event seem very remote.

It is important to note that if we remove New York and New Jersey data from consideration, the coronavirus split between Republican-governed and Democrat-governed populations for the rest of the United States would be precise as the current split for the flu, 43% vs. 57%. In other words, outside these two states, coronavirus propagates in the same manner as the regular flu.

The widespread but incorrect assumption is that it’s the United States federal government’s job to fight epidemics.  However, the federal government was not created by our Founding Fathers with such a task in mind; the responsibility lies solely on states’ Governors.  The federal authorities can and will help, but nobody should expect Washington to be in the captain’s chair.  So far, governors in the United States acted in line with the 4-to-1 patient ratio.  Currently, 29 states have stay-at-home orders; 20 of them came from Democrat governors (i.e., the split, if one counts just the governors, is about 70% vs. 30%, or about 2-to-1 ratio).  

Who can say for sure if this reflects a real concern or simply scaremongering on the part of New York, New Jersey, and some other governors? The factors facilitating the spread of the flu virus and coronavirus are precisely the same (population density, international and domestic travel, public transportation – just to name a few).  Why are that flu virus and coronavirus propagation statistics so drastically different in the election year 2020?

The current situation, unfortunately, creates more questions than answers.  There is something out there that leads to the observed significant discrepancies in coronavirus proportions between Democrat-governed and Republican-governed states.  We all know that the regular, yearly flu epidemics in the United States are not managed, not politicized, and not weaponized, but the current COVID-19 outbreak certainly is.  It deviously “looks as if microorganisms are capable of reformatting the world macroeconomics.”

There are a lot of questions regarding the origin, spread, and treatment of the Chinese coronavirus.  Also, nobody seems to be even sure if the recent increase of cases is a measurement of actual cases, or it is just a reflection of the increased availability of SARS-CoV2 (which causes COVID-19) test kits.  Only after finding answers to these questions, we can approach the main problem – what the hell do politics have to do with it?

[Originally published at American Thinker]