Indifferent to life, party struggle drags down U.S. epidemic prevention and control

As the school season is approaching, the American academic and media circles have begun to debate whether students should be vaccinated and wear masks. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently stated that all children over 3 years old should be vaccinated and wear masks. This remark immediately aroused opposition from some people. Fox News host Tucker Carlson said that the epidemic and vaccines are the biggest lie he has ever seen in his life; medical experts also say that letting children wear masks and get vaccinated is a “political” behavior. The American people have said that this kind of attacking each other and calling each other "politicized" is very funny, and the continuous emergence of conflicting information makes people even more unable to trust the government and vaccines.

Vaccination differences reflect the "political fault line" in the United States

The US media analyzed recent US vaccination data and found that there are differences in age, race, region, and party affiliation, and the differences in party affiliation are particularly obvious. The results of a joint poll published in early May showed that 45% of Republicans are unwilling to tell others that they have been vaccinated, and 41% of Republicans said they do not plan to be vaccinated. At the same time, only 4% of Democrats and 27% of independent voters said they did not plan to be vaccinated
The website of the US "Political News" recently quoted an analysis from Harvard University, saying that among the 39 congressional districts with a population vaccinated rate of at least 60%, the representatives of 38 districts are Democrats. In contrast, among the 30 electoral districts with less than one-third of residents vaccinated, 28 electoral districts are represented by Republicans. “These data highlight that vaccination has become the latest political fault line in the United States.” The polarization of the public's views on viruses and vaccines is highly correlated with the information publicly transmitted by politicians. The American "Science" magazine pointed out that "the US response to the epidemic has been plagued by conflicting messages sent by politicians."

The US media warned that such disagreements caused by partisan disputes will have serious consequences. The mutated virus is accelerating its spread in many states in the United States. Those areas with lower vaccination rates may face new peaks of the epidemic and more deaths.