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Trump states shut out COVID headlines as virus spreads unchecked

17 December 2020
 Dan Ackermann
Data: SocialFlow; Chart: Danielle Alberti/Axios

States that voted for PresidentTrump tend to have high coronavirus caseloads compared to how much COVID content they read online, while the opposite is true of states that voted for President-elect Biden, according to exclusive data from social media management platform SocialFlow.

Why it matters: The trend highlights a widespread rejection of coronavirus news and information in states that supported Trump, even in areas where the virus has gotten particularly deadly.

"It’s clear that stories about COVID simply don’t animate red state residents the same way they do those in blue states," SocialFlow CEO Jim Anderson tells Axios. "This chart would look quite different if we were able to run it on the topic of election fraud."

By the numbers: Blue states account for the 15 biggest differences among states that readmore coronavirus content relative to their caseloads.

  • Red states account for 11 of the 12 biggest differences among states that have bigger caseloads compared to the amount of coronavirus content they read.
  • All five Biden-voting states among the 25 with bigger caseloads were battlegrounds, not strongly Democratic.
  • SocialFlow tracks clicks to content from roughly 4,000 media entities, generating roughly 11 billion clicks to publisher sites per year. COVID-related pages include news stories, commentary and information resources.

States in the Plains and upper Midwest — North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Minnesota and Nebraska — were the top five states for coronavirus cases per capita, while Northeastern states have a number of the lowest per-capita caseloads.

  • The Dakotas are the rare instances where states rank highly on both cases and online COVID consumption. North Dakota ranks 1st and 4th, respectively, while South Dakota ranks 2nd and 9th.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.