BTW, let me add a bit to the cautions about attributing the difference in death rates entirely to Republicans' performative dumbshittery: older people are, in general, both more likely to be Republicans and more likely to die of COVID (and also other diseases that an overloaded medical system could otherwise have helped them with), so there's a pretty obvious confounding variable here.
On the other hand, that confounding variable applied just as much before the vacciles were available, and the difference in death rates doesn't seem to have existed before that.
On the gripping hand, I'd expect the similar difference in performative dumbshittery WRT masks to have been around before the vaccines came out, and to have caused a difference in death rates before vaccines... but it looks like not.
I’m quite confident that these researchers are capable of controlling for other demographic factors, since that’s like data analysis 101. Considering they state the results are stratified by age, why would you think age is a confounding variable? That comment doesn’t make sense to me.
I think the commenter didn’t notice that the analysis controlled for age through stratification. You’re right that that confounding variable is taken care of.
I think you’re right… it’s a little annoying because if I link to a study, I usually read it (or at least the results lol) and give a tl;dr. Even if you don’t do that, I’d hope you’d at least read what you’re sharing. If you’re going to give a commentary, at the bare minimum you should check your source to see if they addressed that.
The only thing more annoying than a person who thinks that correlation is always indicative of causation is the person who thinks that correlation is never indicative of causation.