Polarization has been rising in the United States of America for the past few decades and now poses a significant-and growing-public-health risk. One of the signature features of the American response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been the degree to which perceptions of risk and willingness to follow public-health recommendations have been politically polarized. Although COVID-19 has proven more lethal than any war or public-health crisis in American history, the deadly consequences of the pandemic were exacerbated by polarization. We review research detailing how every phase of the COVID-19 pandemic has been polarized, including judgments of risk, spatial distancing, mask wearing, and vaccination. We describe the role of political ideology, partisan identity, leadership, misinformation, and mass communication in this public-health crisis. We then assess the overall impact of polarization on infections, illness, and mortality during the pandemic; offer a psychological analysis of key policy questions; and identify a set of future research questions for scholars and policy experts. Our analysis suggests that the catastrophic death toll in the United States was largely preventable and due, in large part, to the polarization of the pandemic. Finally, we discuss implications for public policy to help avoid the same deadly mistakes in future public-health crises.

中文翻译：

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流行病两极分化的代价：前因、后果和教训。


过去几十年来，美国的两极分化一直在加剧，现在构成了日益严重的重大公共卫生风险。美国应对 COVID-19 大流行的标志性特征之一是，对风险的看法和遵循公共卫生建议的意愿在政治上两极分化。尽管事实证明，COVID-19 比美国历史上任何战争或公共卫生危机都更具致命性，但两极分化加剧了这一流行病的致命后果。我们回顾了详细介绍了 COVID-19 大流行的每个阶段如何两极分化的研究，包括风险判断、空间距离、佩戴口罩和疫苗接种。我们描述了政治意识形态、党派身份、领导力、错误信息和大众传播在这场公共卫生危机中的作用。然后，我们评估了大流行期间两极分化对感染、疾病和死亡率的总体影响；对关键政策问题进行心理分析；并为学者和政策专家确定一系列未来的研究问题。我们的分析表明，美国灾难性的死亡人数在很大程度上是可以避免的，并且在很大程度上是由于大流行的两极分化。最后，我们讨论对公共政策的影响，以帮助避免在未来的公共卫生危机中犯同样的致命错误。