Analysis: U.S. Republican COVID politics

GOP presidential hopefuls use Trump's COVID record to court vaccine skeptics Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and other Republican contenders have made statements appealing to the anti-vaccine leanings of the party's base. CBS News

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The GOP has gained the allegiance of "a minority of people who feel very strongly about the safety of vaccines," Robert Blendon, a Harvard professor of public health, told KFF Health News. Presidential candidates are trying to use this sensibility as "a cultural issue" to signal distrust in scientists, other experts, and government authority in general, he said.

The resulting dynamic carries the risk of reaching beyond the current election cycle to affect public health policy in years to come, leading to lower rates among schoolchildren and seniors of vaccinations that protect them from measles, shingles, and HPV. Even as candidates try to weaponize this rhetoric, they've had little luck in changing the former president's front-runner status. ...