Concept

Case Study Covid-19 Infection Rate and US In-Person Elections

In the United States, contact-tracing analysis by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services identified 71 confirmed cases of COVID-19 to in-person voting in the April of 2020. In an extensive observational and analytical study from primary data, results indicate that on average a 10% increase in in-person voters per polling location between counties is associated with approximately a 17.7% increase in the positive test rate. It is notable that the infection data provided by the Wisconsin Elections Commission and Wisconsin Department of Health Services should be relatively reliable given that the election occurred during a “safer at home” government warning, meaning infection from non-essential activities is less likely. The “safer at home” warning was also announced only two weeks prior to the election with little time to make arrangements for socially distanced alternatives, so the sample of voters should be relatively representative of the broader population.

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Updated 2020-08-23

Tags

SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19)

Biomedical Sciences