A study finally shows just how much deadlier COVID has been for Republicans.

Most crucially, the study also does not include data on whether individuals who died were vaccinated. As a result, the authors cannot quite prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that COVID was deadlier for Republicans specifically because fewer of them chose to be inoculated against it. 

But, combined with what we know from other sources, the paper certainly points very, very strongly toward that conclusion. After all, why else would the death gap between Democrats and Republicans only have opened up after vaccines became available to the public? Notably, in counties with the very highest vaccination rates, the study's authors find almost no difference in excess deaths between Republicans and Democrats. One plausible, if ever so slightly speculative, interpretation of this finding is that in places where conservatives acted more like liberals and actually got their shots, they were less likely to die...

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/10/covid-deadlier-republicans-study.html