America's virus hotspots overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump, research shows

America's virus hotspots overwhelming voted for Donald Trump, with the vast majority of the worst affected counties backing the Republican candidate.

A review by Associated Press of the 376 counties in America which have the highest number of new cases per head found that 93 per cent of them voted for Mr Trump this week.

Many of the hotspots currently bearing the brunt of America's autumn surge in cases are rural counties in states such as Montana, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Wisconsin.

Covid precautions such as mask-wearing and social distancing have been less well observed in such areas and they have been badly hit by the latest surge in cases.

America once again smashed its record for the highest daily tally of new infections, posting more than 121,000 new cases on Thursday. The toll was the second day of six-figure increases and comes as the country's outbreak shows no sign of slowing.

Burgeoning case loads are also feeding into high numbers of hospitalisations. America now has more than 53,000 Covid hospital patients, the Covid Tracking Project said. Those admissions are expected to feed into higher deaths in the coming weeks.

America's acute political polarisation over public health measures has been credited with worsening the pandemic in the country. More than 9.6 million people have been infected and 234,000 have died in the United States so far, by far the highest tolls globally.

Voters went to the polls starkly divided on Mr Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Public health officials said that they hoped the divided partisan atmosphere would become less intense once the election race was over, allowing for another push on precautions that could save tens of thousands of lives in the coming months.

“Public health officials need to step back, listen to and understand the people who aren’t taking the same stance” on mask-wearing and other control measures, Dr Marcus Plescia of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, told AP.

“I think there’s the potential for things to get less charged and divisive,” he said, adding that there’s a chance a reworked public health message might unify Americans around lowering case counts so hospitals won’t get swamped during the winter months.

The partisan gulf in perception of the pandemic was underlined by separate polling found that 36 per cent of Trump voters described the pandemic as completely or mostly under control. Another 47 per cent said it was somewhat under control. Meanwhile, 82 per cent of Biden voters in the survey of 100,000 people said the pandemic is not at all under control.

The pandemic was considered at least somewhat under control by slim majorities of voters in many red states, including Alabama (60 per cent), Missouri (54 per cent), Mississippi (58 per cent), Kentucky (55 per cent), Texas (55 per cent), Tennessee (56 per cent) and South Carolina (56 per cent)

Modelling forecasts the American outbreak will continue to worsen. Sixteen states topped their daily case records on Thursday, and three states posted record numbers of deaths, the New York Times reported. In 28 states, there have been more cases announced in the past week than in any other seven-day stretch since the pandemic began.

An epidemiological model regularly updated by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle last week suggested daily deaths in America reaching 2,250 by mid-January and the cumulative death toll hitting 399,000 by February 1.

Speaking at the Oxford Union on Friday night, Dr Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the US was unlikely to follow the UK in imposing a national lockdown.

"We're not in that place now. I think that will be poorly received because there has been very strong pushback against that," he said.

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