ON THE OTHER HAND, THEIR REPLACEMENTS ARE AT THE BORDER:

COVID-19 hasn't disappeared in blue states like California and New York. But places that have managed to surpass 65 percent vaccination are in a better position than red states like West Virginia, Idaho, or Wyoming, where hospitals are overrun with unvaccinated COVID-19 patients. (Idaho's COVID death rate last week, for example, was seven times that of New York state.) Even at the county level, as David Leonhardt shows at The New York Times, there's a marked partisan bias: Republican counties in blue states have vastly more cases and deaths on average, while Democratic counties in red states are faring better than their neighbors.

A primary reason for this disparity is how right-wing media has come out hard against COVID vaccines. From pundits on Fox News to the gutters of Trumpist Facebook, anti-vaccine misinformation is everywhere. As a result, vaccination rates are starkly partisan. Many Republicans aren't getting vaccinated, and a lot of them are dying. Rejecting the vaccines is costing the GOP votes it can ill afford to lose.

Tucker Carlson may be the worst offender: He's the top-rated cable news host in the country and a prolific source of anti-vaccine lies. Ever since President Biden was elected, Carlson has spread false stories that the vaccines don't work and the government is covering it up -- or that they're killing thousands of people and the government is covering it up -- or that there are folk remedies like ivermectin which are better than vaccines for treating COVID and, yes, the government is covering it up.

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