Seven Million Unnecessary Deaths: What the response to COVID-19 in different countries and in Red and Blue States tells us about human nature

Most of the 7.1 million current global COVID deaths could likely have been prevented if the initial behavioral response in Wuhan, China had been different. Since the virus has spread globally, national death rates have varied from less than 1 to 660 deaths per 100,000. If all countries had responded like neighboring countries in Asia, half of global deaths could have been prevented. The United States with 1.2 million COVID deaths, 17% of the global total, has one of the highest COVID death rates, more than five times higher than expected from age, income, and temperature and more than six times the rate in Japan, which has more elderly. Five-year age-adjusted COVID death rates in US states vary from 66 to 410 per 100,000 in Non-Hispanic Whites, a six-fold difference. The state’s percentage of Trump votes in 2020 explains 51% of these differences, with death rates 69% higher in high vs low percentage states overall and 225% higher in 2021, the year with the most deaths. Residents of states with more Trump votes have been half as likely to be vaccinated and to practice social distancing. If the US had responded to COVID like Japan, almost a million American lives would have been saved. If all states had responded like the best Blue State, Hawaii, more than 900,000 lives would have been spared. In addition, using death certificate data, we estimate that the prevalence of Long COVID is 2.7 times higher in states with more vs less Trump votes (10.5±2.3% vs 3.8±1.2%). We discuss how three mental traits evolved through natural and sexual selection may help to explain such dysfunctional behavioral responses to life threatening danger: the tendency to form dominance hierarchies, rampant ingroup favoritism, and the often lethal combination of risk taking and overconfidence, especially in males.