As a reminder — like you need one — that Republicans spread false shit about COVID on a constant basis comes from this latest story of GQP imbecilic nonsense they personally themselves don’t believe. In the last two days of 2021, assholes on the House Judiciary Committee revealed their heartless, mean-spirited attitude of disaster — they tweeted Thursday evening booster shots don’t work, then after fierce criticism, deleted it Friday morning.
A continuing dumb-ass, horrid display of killing their own voters, Republicans are cruel beyond the lowest common, political denominator.
Right-leaners are insanely-modified idiots:
As we end 2021, mired in a deadly pandemic, you should know who has prolonged it. THESE GUYS. Republican liars. Your vacation cancelled. Your kids back to virtual learning. And back to masks everywhere. For blame look no farther than #TheseGuys. pic.twitter.com/v3S43HKPVZ
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) December 31, 2021
Now the science has science on the anti-science.
Horrible as it is, people who favor being an idiot on COVID safe practices are more likely to contract the virus — via PsyPost this morning:
Having less accurate knowledge about COVID-19 is associated with a greater likelihood of contracting the virus, according to new research published in Scientific Reports. The findings indicate that people who believe misinformation about COVID-19 are at greater risk of getting sick compared to their more knowledgeable counterparts.
“When the pandemic first broke out in the spring of 2020, my lab group was struck by the fact that the entire nation was being asked to change their behavior, i.e., to comply with the social distancing recommendations,” said study author Russell H. Fazio, the Harold E. Burtt Chair in Psychology at The Ohio State University.
“Hence, we came to regard the directive as a call for action on the part of behavioral scientists. By May, we had initiated what became a series of studies examining the beliefs and individual difference variables that related to social distancing behavior. Eventually, we re-contacted the initial participants to ask whether they had contracted COVID-19, including whether they had tested positively for the virus, during the intervening four months.”
…
“There are many important findings from this research, but the most critical one may be related to misinformation regarding COVID-19. We had administered a brief quiz regarding the virus. Individuals with more accurate knowledge were far less likely to have contracted COVID-19,” Fazio told PsyPost.“Moreover, additional analyses revealed that accurate knowledge was the primary mechanism mediating the impact of many other beliefs and personal characteristics on the likelihood of contracting the virus. For example, the more trust participants reported in then-President Trump, who had downplayed the severity of the pandemic, the less accurate knowledge they had about the virus, and the more likely they were to subsequently contract the virus. The reverse was true with respect to the extent that participants reported trust in scientists.”
The findings are in line with another longitudinal study, conducted in The Netherlands, which found that people who believed in conspiracy theories about COVID-19 were more likely to contract the virus.
The new findings also dovetail with another study, which surveyed 1,695 individuals from South Carolina. That study found that those who trusted science were more likely to report engaging in preventative behaviors, such as washing hands and wearing a mask.
The opposite was true among those who approved of the way Trump was doing his job as president.Other research has found that people with a poor understanding of quantitative information are more likely to endorse misinformation about COVID-19.
Those who believe such misinformation, in turn, are less likely to engage in preventative behaviors.
Due to this bullshit craziness getting a good handle on the COVID pandemic is going to be tough.
The late-great George Carlin pretty-much spells it out for the mad-MAGA hatter more than a decade ago:
Here we are, once again…
(Illustration out front: ‘Pinocchio,’ by Enrico Mazzanti (1852-1910), found here)