Accounting for partisanship and politicization: Employing Benford's Law to examine misreporting of COVID-19 infection cases and deaths in the United States

ABSTRACT: The unprecedented contagion of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, causative of COVID-19, has spawned watershed economic, social, ethical, and political upheaval—catalyzing severe polarization among the global populace. Ostensibly, to demonstrate the most appropriate path towards responding to the virus outbreak, public officials in the United States (“U.S.”), representing both Democratic and Republican parties, stand accused of unduly influencing COVID-19 records in their respective jurisdictions. This study investigates the role political partisanship may have played in decreasing the accuracy of publicly reported COVID-19 data in the U.S. Leveraging social identity theory, we contend that public officials may have manipulated the reporting records in accounting for COVID-19 infection cases and deaths

SUBMITTER: Eutsler J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10086107 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature