>The Polarization of politics and public opinion and their effects on racial inequality in COVID mortality: Evidence suggests that [the] shrinking gap in US COVID-19 racial death disparities [is] driven by political division and increasing total deaths among Whites [,] rather than decreasing deaths among Blacks.

The gap in COVID-19 death rates between White people and Black people is closing. But this is not because the death rate among Blacks is improving; instead the disparity is lessening because more White people are dying. And the reason more White people are dying is because many White conservatives are resisting preventative safety measures like masking and getting vaccinated.

Basically the rate at which Black Americans died from Covid remained consistent across the pandemic.

Instead the rate at which White Americans died from Covid increased, specifically because White Americans who expressed less to no concern about the pandemic ,ie Republicans, were more likely due from Covid from their lack of preventative action and lack of Republican state action.

They conclude that there still was racial disparity between Black Democrats and White Democrats dying from Covid, but polarization of no-concern to high-concern (and extrapolating vaccination, masking, social distancing) was more likely to affect Covid mortality rates than race.

So essentially the Republicans played themselves, and now we have statistical proof.