Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 11, 2025

Large-Scale SARS-CoV-2 Testing Utilizing Saliva and Transposition Sample Pooling
Published on: June 23, 2022
Association of COVID-19 mortality with politics and on-demand testing in 217 U.S. counties
1Yale University School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA. leon.robertson@yale.edu.
Background:
Previous research found increased COVID-19 spread associated with politics and on-demand testing but not in the same study. The objective of this study is to estimate the contribution of each corrected for the other and a variety of known risk factors.
Methods:
Using data from 217 U.S. counties of more than 50,000 population where testing data were available in April, 2021, the associations of COVID-19 deaths with politics, testing and other risk factors were examined by Poisson and least squares regression.
Results:
Statistical controls for 15 risk factors failed to eliminate the association of COVID mortality risk with percent of vote for Donald Trump in 2016 or negative tests per population. Each is independently predictive of increased mortality.
Conclusion:
Apparently, many people who test negative for the SARS-CoV-2 virus engage in activities that increase their risk, a problem likely to increase with the availability of home tests. There is no association of negative tests with the Trump vote but, according to polling data, Trump voters' past resistance to public health recommendations has been extended to resistance to being vaccinated, threatening the goal of herd immunity.
Related Concept Videos
Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms-SNPs
Contingency Table
Causality in Epidemiology
Steps in Outbreak Investigation
Residuals and Least-Squares Property
If the observed data point lies above the line, the residual is positive, and the line underestimates the actual data value for y. If the observed data point lies below the line, the residual is negative, and the line overestimates the actual data value for y.
The process of fitting the best-fit...
The Mantel-Cox Log-Rank Test

