Results of MAGA COVID Denial

October 2, 2020 – Former president Donald Trump announced he and the first lady tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19). Later that day he was rushed by helicopter to Walter Reed Medical Center for treatment. His blood oxygen level had crashed to 86% and was trending lower, constituting an emergency. He remained in the hospital for an experimental monoclonal antibody treatment among other procedures. He was released from the hospital three days later.

At least 206,400 Americans had died of COVID-19 by that date and the trend was escalating rapidly. The United States had the highest COVID death toll in the world at the time.

Disputing these facts and dismissing the sources of those facts is within the MAGA COVID denial matrix.

Events around that time turned out to be COVID-19 contagion festivals. The Amy Coney Barrett Supreme Court announcement on September 26, an event for Gold Star families on September 27, and the Presidential debate on September 29 were attended by many people averse to cautionary procedures.

Few Masks At White House

September 26, 2020 – A likely contagious Trump hosted over 200 people at a White House Rose Garden event announcing his nomination of Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court seat available in the wake of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing.

The former president’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows later revealed Trump had tested COVID-19 positive earlier in the day of the Barrett announcement. While a subsequent rapid test was negative, the correct protocol is to have a much more accurate nose swab PCR test rather than yet another rapid test.

People conditioned to push back on any COVID prevention protocol like wearing a mask attended. Most wanted to set an example to encourage others to behave similarly. Of the 213 attendees in the seated audience area, it appears 36 wore masks.

Images of the event show politicians and others ignoring another important COVID safety protocol, distancing. MAGA Utah Senator Mike Lee, for example, was on camera shaking hands, hugging… happily engaging in virus spreading activities. That’s COVID denial.

Gold Star Families Blamed

September 27, 2020 – A White House ceremony honors the families of fallen service members, “Gold Star” families. Several dozen guests and high-ranking military officials attended. Few of them wore masks including then president Trump.

Fox Business Network broadcast a Maria Bartiromo interview of the former president October 8. While discussing his bout with the virus, Trump brought up the Gold Star family event. He suggested the Gold Star families exposed him to the virus, despite having tested positive the day before he met them.

They tell me these stories, and I can’t say, ‘Back up, stand 10 feet, I just can’t do it.’

And I went through like 35 people and everyone had a different story.

They come within an inch of my face sometimes, they want to hug me and they want to kiss me. And they do. And frankly, I’m not telling them to back up. I’m not doing it, but obviously it’s a dangerous thing, I guess, if you go by the COVID thing.

Donald Trump – Fox Business interview – October 8, 2020

Ohio Presidential Debate

September 29, 2020 – At the first presidential debate, Trump mocked Biden for wearing “the biggest masks I’ve ever seen.” answering a masking question posed by Chris Wallace.

The Cleveland, Ohio debate had multiple COVID protocols in place. Seating was spaced to meet social distancing guidelines. COVID-19 PCR tests were administered on the hospital campus for all attendees. A negative result was required to join the audience at the debate.

The exception to the testing protocol was for people in the candidate’s entourage, which Trump took full advantage of.

That entourage included the Trump family and significant others sitting maskless in the front row celebrating their freedom. Mark Meadows glad handed the crowd, offering hand sanitizer after handshakes. Ohio congressman Jim Jordan was in the party as well.

They all entered the room wearing masks and immediately removed them once seated. Smug facial expressions changed once the former president’s positive COVID test and hospitalization became public. The entire maskless crew subsequently, but less smugly, enjoyed an intensive White House contact tracing effort.

They proved a point on camera that wasn’t the intended one. The entourage complied at the second debate rather than facing removal from the audience.

COVID Vaccines Change The Game

443,000 Americans died from COVID by the time the former president left office. The trend of COVID-19 deaths was still heading up until vaccines became more widely available. Trump did promote Operation Warp Speed which, coupled with MRNA technology, accelerated the production and distribution of COVID vaccine. It wasn’t widely available until he was out of office, however, so the death toll continued to rise.

A disturbing and revealing trend appeared once the vaccine was available to anyone wanting a free inoculation. A notable percentage of Americans refused to participate. A 2023 study of more than a half million deaths of people 25 years of age and older discovered political party preference was a factor.

Our study found evidence of higher excess mortality for Republican voters compared with Democratic voters in Florida and Ohio after, but not before, COVID-19 vaccines were available to all adults in the US.
These differences in excess death rates were larger in counties with lower vaccination rates.
If differences in COVID-19 vaccination by political party affiliation persist, particularly in the absence of other pandemic mitigation strategies, the higher excess death rate observed among Republican voters may continue through subsequent stages of the pandemic.

Excess Death Rates for Republican and Democratic Registered Voters During the COVID-19 Pandemic – July 24, 2023

Masks are an effective if imperfect strategy to help prevent the spread of airborne diseases. Two centuries of scientific data prove the efficacy of vaccines. The eradication of globally impactful diseases proves the case even better, as does the resurgence of some diseases as vaccine denial takes root.

The mask and vaccine fence divides the same pastures as the political preferences in the above study. That fence isn’t exclusive to the United States, there are similar divisions between “liberal” and “conservative” sides globally.

How did we get to a place where masks and vaccines present such a stark and impenetrable divide?

MAGA COVID Denial

The MAGA culture war embraced the COVID denial split before a vaccine was available. Look no further than the behavior at the above events for proof.

The opening salvo was the reaction to official suggestions wearing a protective mask when mixing with other people would slow COVID-19 spread. The federal government mandates for masks on aircraft and other places in the purview of the federal government increased the volume. Once state and local governments began school closures, mandatory masking, and other restrictions nearly all MAGA people loudly refused to participate.

Mask Mandate COVID Denial

Loyalty to Donald Trump messaging certainly affected the attitude of the MAGA group in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump setting an example by refusing to wear a mask in nearly every public situation was enough for his people to do the same.

The top ten excuses for not wearing a mask, according to Forbes, seems to cover the COVID denial bases:

1. Freedom (Constitutional rights being infringed upon!)
2. The virus isn’t real or not that bad.
3. The mask will cause various medical problems.
4. Asking you to wear a mask is discrimination.
5. You tested negative for the Covid-19 coronavirus.
6. It is not cool or masculine.
7. You can’t get the virus.
8. The mask hides and covers your beautiful nose, mouth, smile, chin, cheeks, lips, nostrils, or whatever body part and prevents communication.
9. The mask is a symbol of (fill in the blank).
10. Mask advice keeps changing.

Masks almost certainly work to prevent transmission of COVID-19. It’s a scientifically proven fact. Here’s a short, easily read paper from Annals of Internal Medicine with their evidence. Click here, or not.

Vaccine Refusal COVID Denial

Dr. Edward Jenner discovers vaccination with cowpox virus can protect a person from smallpox infection and creates a smallpox vaccine. Jenner published his findings in 1798 and widespread smallpox vaccinations begin in the early 1800’s. Objections to the vaccine surface immediately.

Smallpox Vaccine in Britain

It’s understandable people would have difficulty accepting the vaccine process at the turn of the 19th century. The process involved:

• Find a cow infected with cowpox
• Extract the lymph from a cowpox blister on the cow
• Dip a lancet into the lymph
• Jab the lancet repeatedly into the patient’s arm

Objections to the vaccine were religious and secular. People doubted the vaccine worked. Some thought the cause of smallpox could not be affected by such a protocol.

Mandatory vaccination for infants up to 3 months old came in 1853. Vaccinations were refused as objections mounted. The Act of 1867 responded to that reluctance by extending the age requirement to 14 years and adding penalties for vaccine refusal. British subjects formed organizations to object, maintaining the rules were an infringement of their personal liberties.

Continued strenuous objections to mandatory smallpox vaccinations resulted in the government allowing a waiver on a “conscientious objector” basis in 1898.

The COVID vaccine and boosters receive the same objections.

Smallpox Vaccine in America

Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse vaccinated his son and other family members in 1800, the first smallpox vaccinations in the U.S.

Toward the end of the i9th century, mandatory smallpox campaigns in America began to appear. Immediate objections mirrored the British results including organizations formed to battle vaccine mandates. Court battles intending to repeal the vaccination laws arose in at least California, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

A 1902 smallpox outbreak led the Cambridge, Massachusetts Board of Health to institute a mandatory vaccination for all city residents. One resident, Henning Jacobson, refused the vaccination because it infringed upon “the inherent right of every freeman to care for his own body and health in such a way as to him seems best.”

Jacobson lost his case, so he appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The first Supreme Court decision in 1905 concerning the power of states in public health law was the result. The Court found the state could not pass laws requiring vaccination in order to protect an individual, it could do so to protect the public in the case of a dangerous communicable disease.

Vaccine Eradicates Smallpox

The last natural outbreak of smallpox in the United States occurred in 1949. World Health Assembly declared smallpox eradicated (eliminated) in 1980, and no cases of naturally occurring smallpox have happened since.

Smallpox was eradicated by vaccinations worldwide.

MAGA COVID Vaccine Resistance

The top ten states for COVID vaccine and booster acceptance are all “blue” states and the bottom ten are all “red” states. Georgia might be a slight exception to the “red” state rule since Biden won and Herschel Walker lost in 2020. The trend is obvious, however.

Nearly every other mandatory vaccination process has met resistance, the reasons are similar. Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis (DTP) Vaccine met resistance with claims of neurological side effects. Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) met resistance because of alleged autism and bowel disorder side effects. Thimerosal is a vaccine stabilizing preservative. It contained mercury claimed to cause autism, an objection that affected confidence in all vaccines.

The United States eliminated measles in 2000 and rubella in 2004. Mumps has proven stubborn to eradicate. Measles since reappeared in 2018 as vaccination rates dropped.

The COVD vaccine met similar resistance but with a greater degree of amplification by then president Trump and his allies. Despite Trump and most of his Congress pals receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, he and his cohorts continued to promote unproven prevention measures. So, with those inaccurate claims being anointed as truth by their leader, MAGA people were prone to ignore not just safety measures but also vaccinations. The resulting increase in their death rate noted at the beginning of this piece was one needless result.

Hydroxychloroquine COVID Denial

Donald Trump promoted hydroxychloroquine as an effective treatment for COVID-19. It spread immediately through the MAGA crowd. As a consequence of that, The Lancet – Regional Health – The Americas analyzed an academic-led, multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized trial with the following result:

In this double-blind, multicenter, randomised trial, hydrocychloroquine did not significantly reduce the risk of hospitalisation due to COVID-19 as compared with placebo in symptomatic non-hospitalized patients.

Two trials with larger sample sizes, evaluating hydroxychloroquine in hospitalized patients with mild/moderate COVID-19, consistently confirmed the lack of benefit in the hospital setting.

Hydroxychloroquine versus placebo in the treatment of non-hospitalised patients with COVID-19

A single Trump tweet pushing hydroxychloroquine received 97,000 retweets and 291,000 likes. The impact of the MAGA movement leader blessing an unproven treatment, one proven to be no better than a sugar pill, was to reduce confidence in a proven vaccine. The overall health impact of that tweet is impossible to calculate, but counting the “extra” deaths of people claiming to be Republicans is a stark reminder that words matter.

MAGA Mind Research

The National Center for Biotechnology Information made a serious attempt to quantify “Impact of Trump’s Promotion of Unproven COVID-19 Treatments and Subsequent Internet Trends” in 2020. It’s a dense document but the following excerpt of the results tells the story.

Our results show that there was a substantial increase in purchases and searches for previously unpurchased and unsearched therapies by the general public following the backing of US president Donald J Trump.

These increases correlated with his discussions in press conferences and personal social media posts advocating for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine cures.

Conservative outlets provided the most airtime to hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, and airtime for these therapies only peaked on liberal media outlets after the chloroquine-induced death occurred.

Impact of Trump’s Promotion of Unproven COVID-19 Treatments

MAGA Acceptance of COVID Denial

Other therapies followed the hydroxychloroquine suggestions. Ivermectin, also proven to be no more effective than a placebo, was an impactful one. One suggestion from Trump to investigate shining UV light inside the body to thwart COVID came during a press conference. In the next sentence he suggests using disinfectants like “almost a cleaning” inside or out.

That’s who was, and is, driving the MAGA train off a cliff.

Most of those suggestions (other than the light and bleach) were amplified on Fox News and other media outlets and, of course, social media would blaze with them.

Dr. Fauci became, and remains, a target of derision and accusations of impropriety. That remains a subject for a future post about people who have had targets placed on their backs by the former president.

Psychological Reactance

A human phenomenon known as psychological reactance (PR) is defined as: “a motivational response to rules, regulations, or attempts at persuasion that are perceived as threatening one’s sense of control, autonomy, or freedom of choice.”

That mouthful of words is an apt description of most of us. We cherish and protect our autonomy from a very young age. The “terrible twos” are when we begin to exert our individuality to the consternation of our parents. We discover saying “no” has an impact, sometimes a positive one. In those regards we’re all susceptible to manifest PR in the same way regardless of our politics.

Politically, we may have wider differences in our responses to rules and regulations and government restrictions.

The strongest characteristic of a traditional politically conservative person is to believe in minimal government intervention in daily life.

A traditional politically liberal person would believe in government’s responsibility to intervene more directly to resolve human problems a conservative would argue are the responsibility of charity or private enterprise.

It boils down to reacting with “You can’t tell me what to do!” We should be able to get past that with each other.

The MAGA Fence

The PR factor isn’t what makes the MAGA movement untenable, its the “facts” factor. Refusing to wear masks in public was at best rude when COVID was at it’s peak.

Not “masking up” is more benign than refusing a proven vaccine claiming things like “herd immunity” as justification. It’s dangerous and there’s little doubt it continues to extend the impact of the virus. MAGA people infected by COVID would still refuse to capitulate, hoping they now had immunity. Many of them had it multiple times, of course.

Unvaccinated people are four times as likely to die from a COVID infection than vaccinated people.

Fact denial is an unbridgeable divide. Faith in facts means accepting them even when they run counter to your hopes and beliefs. It’s impossible for people placing stock in facts to resolve the conflict. Because of that, it’s beneficial to the former president and every Republican looking to keep or gain power to maintain that fact chasm.

It’s debilitating when people with similar interests can’t discuss anything that might brush the political third rail. As the culture wars have systematically expanded to beer, music, football, and popular topics it becomes more isolating for both sides. It’s even toxic to families and there’s no solution in sight.

No rational discussion “over the fence” regarding COVID is possible at this time. None of that will change until we can all agree on what a fact is.

Research and Supporting Information

• Trump tested positive for coronavirus before first debate with Biden – Washington Post
• Track Covid-19 in the U.S. – NY Times no paywall
• Debate attendees scramble to get COVID-19 tests after many flouted mask rules – ABC News
• Negative attitudes about facemasks during the COVID-19 pandemic – NIH
• At least 25 people in Trump’s orbit have tested positive for COVID-19 – CBS News
• History of Anti-Vaccination Movements – The College of Physicians of Philadelphia
• Ivermectin is the signature example of politics trumping health – Washington Post
• Christie reveals he spent 7 days in ICU – CNN
• Trump suggests coronavirus infection… Gold Star families – Washington Post
• Excess Death Rates for Republican and Democratic Voters – JAMA Internal Medicine
• Here’s everyone at the White House Rose Garden SCOTUS event… – USA Today
• The Last Smallpox Epidemic in Boston and the Vaccination Controversy – New England Journal of Medicine