Social distancing has been a central plank of most government’s covid policies.  New research from Penn State explores whether adherence to these measures differs according to our political beliefs, especially during early periods when such advice was not part of official recommendations.

The study found that there did indeed appear to be a partisan divide, with suggestions from Republican governors in early March having a greater impact on behavior of people in Democrat-leaning counties than they did on people in Republican-leaning counties.

“This was the point in time when the national Republican consensus was to downplay the severity of the virus, so a Republican who’s willing break ranks sends a very strong message that this is something that we need to get serious about, and in particular Democrats are very receptive to that kind of message,” the researchers say.

This is important, because the study suggests that political leaders, such as the governors, are crucial in the views, and behaviors, people form during the pandemic.

“We’re in an era in which everything is nationalized, with the outsized influence of Trump it can seem like local leaders don’t matter. But this shows the role of local leaders, even amid a global pandemic, is also quite important,” the researchers continue.

Social distance

The research reveals that Republican governors were typically slower to introduce measures such as stay-at-home orders than their Democratic peers, with citizens who identify as Republican also less likely to engage in social distancing than their Democrat peers.  Where things differ from this narrative is when Republican governors in predominantly Democrat states.  In such circumstances, people were particularly responsive to the message.

“We found that communication by the governor produces basically the same-sized effect in terms of social distancing behavior as the eventual lockdown policy itself,” the researchers say. “It was surprising that these early voluntary behavior changes based on communication from local leaders were actually extremely important.”

The study relied upon publicly available data alongside the communication of each governor on Twitter between March 15th and April 1st.  In total, this consisted of around 10,000 tweets, all of which were coded to determine whether they were related to covid or not, and whether they dealt specifically with social distancing or any other covid-related measure.

The mobility of citizens each day was then compiled using location information from mobile phones, with data assessed from 3,100 different counties across 49 states.

“The study brings together a pretty wide array of data sources to look at this question,” the researchers explain. “And all of the co-authors had expertise that was invaluable for carrying out the study: expertise in communications, people with expertise in empirical strategies to look at the effects of these lockdown recommendations and policies. It is a good demonstration of different disciplinary backgrounds and prior research experience being used to study an important topic.”