Thursday 5 January 2023

Fact Checking Fauci

My chart from Spreadsheet and calculations here
Dr Anthony Fauci has said (1) We should not politicise the pandemic and (2) Republican states were responsible for more deaths than Democrat states, because they did not vaccinate as much as the Democrat-run states. 

My comments:

1. Fauci’s point (2) above contradicts his point (1). By criticising Republican states, he is politicising the pandemic.

2. In any case, he’s wrong. Republican-run states do not have a worse Covid deaths per million than Democrat-run states. The figures show that. The science shows that:

Here is my spreadsheet, with figures from CDC via New York Times (for vaccine rates) and Worldometer (for death rates).

The correlation (R) between Vaccinated percentage and Deaths per million is “weak”. That is R= -0.40. To be a significant correlation you’d be looking at R > 0.6.

Average Death Rates per million: Democrat = 3,181. Republican = 3,178. The figures are virtually identical and therefore say nothing about the state party in power (Governor)  and their results in terms of Covid deaths per million.

Average Vaccination Rates: Democrat 92%. Republican = 90%. This is a minor difference and is not reflected in the deaths per million. 

At the highest vaccination rates (95%), the worst in Deaths per million is Democratic-run New Mexico and the best is Republican-run Vermont. 

Taking all the above into account, we have to give Dr Fauci’s  (“Mr Science”) claims a Pinocchio rating of: