Information in this article was accurate at the time of original publication. Adults ages 18 years and older who received one or two J&J COVID-19 vaccine doses are recommended to receive one bivalent mRNA dose (Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech) at least two months after completion of the previous dose. The CDC says that people ages 18 years and older who received one dose of the J&J vaccine should be considered to have received a single-dose J&J primary series. So far, over 1.1 million people in the US have died from COVID-19.Note: The Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) COVID-19 vaccine is no longer available in the U.S. Public health efforts moving forward should focus not just on booster campaigns for the vaccinated but also on addressing vaccine hesitancy and refusal among the unvaccinated. Although over 270 million Americans (81.4 percent) have received at least one dose, more than 50 million adults have not completed a primary series, putting them at higher risk of death and severe disease. In the meantime, they suggest that the increased health risks to Republicans could continue as the pandemic virus carries on. The researchers suggest more research will need to detangle all the possible factors. The adherence to other health measures-social distancing and masking-may also contribute to the political divide. Political affiliation may be a proxy for other underlying risk factors, including medical conditions or socioeconomic status (although the gap in excess death rates only appeared after the vaccine rollout). Thus, they concluded, "well-documented differences in vaccination attitudes and reported uptake between Republican and Democratic voters may have been factors in the severity and trajectory of the pandemic."īut, of course, there are limitations. They found that the gap in excess deaths was larger in counties with lower vaccination rates, suggesting that lack of vaccination among Republican voters may partly explain the higher death rates. But, they could evaluate excess weekly deaths by age, state, county, and party affiliation. The researchers did not have complete data-the linked data didn't contain a cause of death or vaccination status. The study involved death data on 538,159 people in Ohio and Florida, age 25 and older, and their linked voter registration files. The authors-all researchers at Yale University-focused on Ohio and Florida because those were the only two states with readily available public data on voter registration. But, it takes the connection a step further, going beyond county-level political leanings and looking at how party affiliation linked to deaths at the individual level. The study is just the latest to find a connection between political party affiliation and deaths during the pandemic. Republicans had an excess death rate 7.7 percentage points higher than their blue counterparts, amounting to a 43 percent difference in the excess death rates. But after April 1, when all adults in both states were eligible for vaccination, a gap emerged in the rate of excess deaths between Republican and Democratic voters. Experts are trying to change thatAs the pandemic coronavirus spread between March 2020 and April 1, 2021, people from both parties saw similar surges in excess deaths-that is, deaths above what would be expected had there not been a global health crisis. Further Reading Many Republicans are refusing COVID vaccines.
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