...the history of the pandemic is intertwined with the culture war, and from the beginning the response to COVID-19 has broadly split between blue and red, urban and rural.. For all too many Americans, the answer to that question was almost entirely partisan, and the way they answered that partisan question dictated their response to the virus.
Red Americans disproportionately resisted COVID restrictions, while Blue Americans largely embraced them. Taking their cues from Trump, conservative media elevated COVID skeptics.
The rest is deadly, polarized history. The nation ultimately constructed two, competing Coronavirus political cultures. Travel to a blue city during the height of the pandemic, and the differences were clear. It was unthinkable to go maskless inside a retail establishment, and you would often endure glares and sharp comments even if you unmasked outside.
In a red town—especially a rural red area—the reverse was true. It was almost unthinkable to wear a mask outside, and in some deep red areas, even wearing masks inside was frowned upon.
anti-masking, COVID denialism directly and immediately contributes to the spread of the disease. In a very real way, right-wing COVID political correctness can cost lives. An unmasked person presented an
excessive, unnecessary danger to the people around him.
And the evidence is overwhelming that vaccine hesitancy is just as partisan (if not more) than every other COVID fight since the pandemic began.
While surveys show that vaccine acceptance is thankfully rising overall, they also show that Republicans are
far more hesitant to take the vaccine than Democrats, and heavily-Republican white Evangelicals are
more reluctant to take the vaccine than any other religious community.
If you don’t trust polling data, the real-world results now show that vaccine hesitancy is strongly concentrated in red states. According to the most recent data, when measuring states by percentage of adults who’d taken at least one dose of the vaccine,
Joe Biden won 18 of the top 25. Trump won all but one of the bottom 17. Change the measurement to percentage of available doses administered, and Biden won 18 of the top 25 states in the nation.
When Trump drew the line in the sand minimizing the virus in the first months of the pandemic, millions of his supporters drew that line right with him—and not as a self-consciously partisan pose but rather as a deeply-held belief and tribal identifier.
Resistance to COVID restrictions became a marker of strength and independence, a sign that “they” cannot tell “us” how to live.
Their skepticism about vaccines, along with their resistance to masks, and together with their opposition to lockdowns has become a part of who they are.
Partisan tribalism is the primary cause of Republican reluctance, and it’s the reason why white Evangelicals are disproportionately hesitant to take the vaccine.
white Evangelicals “are Republicans first, white people second, and evangelicals third”.
Thus, so long as vaccine hesitancy remains a partisan issue, religious arguments about the moral necessity of taking the vaccine—for example, to care for our neighbors by making sure we don’t spread the disease—are likely to be ineffective
Re: Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
Originally Posted by B. W.
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by Murdoch into 'Towing-the-line' and conforming to the new status quo. So disappointed to see the last neutral news network in Australia now join the 'Left' side. 
