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On Covid, the Numbers Don’t Lie, But the Republicans Do

A new video from The Washington Post (watch above) crystallizes one of the more maddening aspects of the GOP’s inconsistent COVID-19 response: Republicans think former president Donal Trump deserves credit for the vaccines, even while they’ve undermined trust in them by spreading misinformation about their efficacy and side effects.

A WaPo write-up highlights some of the most head-spinning examples:

In December, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) praised the Trump administration’s “brilliant” Operation Warp Speed for helping expedite the development of coronavirus vaccines. Since then, Johnson has inflated the number of adverse reactions and deaths linked to the vaccines.

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Tex.), a former White House physician, told Fox News in November that he would get vaccinated to contribute to herd immunity. By July, Jackson was warning Fox viewers that “this is still an experimental vaccine being used under an emergency use authorization.”

In March, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) praised former president Donald Trump for saving lives with the coronavirus vaccines. By July, Greene was telling Americans not to get vaccinated.

The hypocrisy makes plain that many Republican lawmakers see the life-saving pharmaceutical as yet another lever to pull in the culture wars. Within the paranoid imagination of right-wing conspiracy theorists, the vaccines represent government overreach as opposed to sound public health policy.

The GOP has exploited this misguided cynicism for political gain. But in their attempts to paint Democrats as intrusive, they’ve induced partisan vaccine hesitancy that imperils herd immunity. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that 86% of Democrats have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot, compared to just 45% of Republicans.

That disparity was overshadowed by the vaccines’ clear success in drastically reducing both the number of new COVID-19 infections and the severity of the disease that has killed over 600,000 Americans. But the highly contagious Delta variant has reversed that trend and cases and deaths are on the rise again, particularly in Southern GOP-led states with low vaccination rates.

Indeed, when it comes to COVID-19, the numbers don’t lie. But the Republicans do.