Those of you who lived in both red and blue areas of the country during the height of the pandemic, what were the most noticeable differences in each area?

24 comments

  1. I guess I “lived” in both. My area is fairly split, purple if you will.

    Conservative rural people were less into masking and some were concerned about the vaccine because it was not long standing and thoroughly tested. I know plenty of conservatives that got vaccinated though and plenty that masked and distanced.

    The more liberal city folks were fully on board with the vaccine and much more into isolating and masking. However, most of my more liberal friends started going to more social events earlier than other people.

    My wife skews left and both of us were vaccinated and boosted yet she still brought Covid back to the house twice. I only got it once. My kids and her got it twice.

    I was waaaay more exposed than her too and maybe a bit less careful with masking. So it seems politics doesn’t make too much of a difference. At least in my life.

  2. My northern Indy burb is light red (actually went for Biden in 2020, a first), Indy is solid blue, Indiana is solid red.

    Mask usage was much more strictly enforced in Marion County/Indianapolis on the business level, including fines if necessary. I don’t think my red county ever fined any business for being relaxed on masks even when the mandate was in effect.

    Schools were shut down longer in much of Indianapolis than in the surrounding counties, but there wasn’t a huge gap compared to parts of Ohio or California.

    Neither Indianapolis nor Indiana ever did the stupid closing public parks and playground equipment. Mayors across the state and our governor encouraged residents to continue going outside for fresh air and exercise.

  3. Red areas people generally didn’t wear masks and complained a lot about the government.

    In blue areas more people wore masks and complained a lot about the government.

  4. Masking for sure.

    Just going over the line from Vermont to NH was seriously like 2 different worlds.

  5. I live in Florida, a purple state. I live in a county that is overwhelmingly blue and you got the classic Karen’s freaking out over people not wearing masks, businesses refusing entry to people unmasked, social distancing, toilet paper hoarding, etc.

    My wife and I drove 2 hrs north to a more red or at least more politically mixed county for a mini vacation and it was night and day. Businesses in full swing, very few people wearing masks, happier, friendlier, less worry, etc.

  6. The “height of the pandemic” at least in terms of deaths was pre-vaccine in most blue states, whereas in at least some red states, it was after the vaccine existed, with the vast majority of those deaths being amongst the unvaccinated.

  7. Live(d) in a very blue area during the pandemic but spent several months long term vacationing/summering in very red area because I could work remotely.

    Blue: very concerned about Covid. Everyone wore mask in public indoors, a lot of people outdoors and some wore mask alone in their front yard or car. People would talk about people in red areas like they were dumb and even evil. Many would police others, had a middle aged women shame me for not wearing a mask walking on a sidewalk outside on a mostly empty street.

    Red: People generally thought Covid was overblown or not real. Not a lot of mask, even when a store had a sign requiring mask only like 10% would wear. One time went to a grocery store with a mask and got a lot of side eyes. When I would tell people I was from a blue area they would usually talk about how crazy those people were.

    It sounds cliche but that was my experience.

  8. Didn’t live in both but went to both throughout, more red areas got back to normal and relaxed things faster than blue areas. A school/school system we did work for had elementary school kids sitting outside, on the little foam pads on the ground, with masks on, in the middle of winter 2021 to eat lunch, they also yelled at kindergarten kids for pulling them down while outside playing on the playground. When I’d visit family in GA we would only have to wear a mask if we were entering a hospital to visit someone and we’d take it off once we were in the room, at the same time of year or earlier.

  9. Red areas had higher death rates and less mask regulations. Crowds of entitled pricks at airports not following CDC guidance.

    Blue areas had a mix of both, but generally people followed the guidance. No one would stand too close to me and businesses were very cautious.

  10. Red state people are generally less neurotic, a difference which was only accentuated during the pandemic. I feel blessed that I lived in Oklahoma for most of it.

  11. I live in a very red area of a blue state and I’m a mailman so I was out of my house for most of the pandemic.

    Red people were just as scared as blue people. We’re all neighbors.

  12. I didn’t live in both red and blue states.

    My part of MD (a blue state) is very red. There were state mask mandates and for the most part people followed them, even in my area. They weren’t being enforced by law enforcement I’m an LEO), but businesses were generally pretty strict about it and most of the nutters didn’t cause too many problems.

    My sheriff basically said we aren’t enforcing a mask mandate and will not take action solely because someone refused to wear a mask. If someone wasn’t wearing a mask and the business refused to provide them service until they put on a mask then we could take action if they still refused and also refused to leave/caused a disturbance (at that point after a warning it would be trespassing and/or disturbing the peace/disorderly conduct.) That only happened a couple of times that I’m aware of.

    In June 2020 we went to the GA mountains for a week. The only people wearing masks anywhere were tourists and a lot of the locals gave everyone side eyed looks and the occasional comment. We wore masks while we were there. I think it was the week after we were there when GA’s Covid numbers went way up. None of my family got Covid. My wife finally got Covid earlier this year, but my kids and I still have not gotten it.

  13. I lived in Mass. Some people there were insane about the pandemic. I would be outside jogging and people would yell at me out a building window for not wearing a mask. Meanwhile they weren’t wearing a mask. There were also people who would just hang out in public places outside and hit air horns if you weren’t wearing your mask. It was super weird.

    Moved to a very rural part of Nevada. Definitely a red area. Most people wore the masks and followed the rules for being in public. But once the vaccines were out they were done with the masks.

  15. Come from a very blue area (the literal bluest of the blue in California), lived in a rural red area in southern Oregon during the pandemic. Visited home via drive sparingly, but stayed for a week or so every time.

    People in my blue city, unsurprisingly, took masking and social distancing pretty seriously, and were avidly doing everything to get everyone capable vaccinated once it came out, even temporarily setting up a vaccination clinic inside of a furniture store. They got hit decently hard when it first started, but it had plateaued by the time I visited, and they were profoundly not eager for a repeat. They were also pretty puritan about people who weren’t masking. Got shouted at for being lazy and “not giving enough of a fuck” by some folk. Being a native of this city, I myself am pretty left leaning, but I wasn’t especially a diehard on this stuff. I just checked alerts on whether it was necessary, what the guidelines were, etc.

    People in my red town, also unsurprisingly, didn’t take masking terribly seriously at first, with many ignoring it or being outright obnoxious. I had a few instances of people literally trying to snatch mine off of me in Walmart, telling me I needed to stop being such a pussy and a “fucking sheep”.

    Their tune turned around completely during the height of the pandemic, largely because this town had a significant portion of geriatric retirees in its population (especially vets, as it’s one of those towns wherein the military is the #1 provider of jobs), and they started dropping like flies. We have one hospital in town, and it was so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people in critical condition, they more or less shut down everything but half the emergency room (the other half was exclusively Covid patients, with large cubicles attached to a bunch of plastic shields separating the two sides), and redirected every single staff member (down to the receptionists) and bed to the newly created Covid ward (they even had to ship in more beds and equipment from other hospitals). The only people who weren’t pushed into this were specialists (such as the handful of optometrists and the sole otolaryngologist in town).

    After enough people had either died or personally witnessed just how much Covid-19 could fuck them up, they started taking masks and social distancing far more seriously. Vaccines, though- well, that was still a step too far for a lot of folks, who felt their arms were being twisted and didn’t care for it. I don’t personally disagree with them that it went too far, with people’s employment being threatened unless they either got the shot or turned in a weekly test (sometimes daily). But it’s a miracle I didn’t get permanent damage from the amount of times I rolled my eyes when they compared vaccine cards to the Holocaust.

    Overall, my blue city got it worst toward the beginning, but came out alright, my red town was alright to start, but got hit really hard at its peak. A lot of people died or are now permanently in need of a mobile oxygen tank.

  16. I lived in Hawaii for a year of the pandemic. Masks were required everywhere- even outside on the street in Honolulu. People weren’t even allowed sit be on the beach for a period of time. They had to be in the water. People weren’t allowed to gather in large groups on the beaches for quite a while.

    Then, I moved to Texas. No masks were required anywhere. When I arrived, I saw maybe 5% of people wearing them when they were 100% required everywhere in Hawaii. It was a huge shock and it felt unnerving.

  18. Red state = home.

    Red states are for self-governance, so telling people they HAVE to wear masks doesn’t cut it. I would only wear one to be polite, if asked politely. I don’t scare easily and neither do my counterparts. Red states are big on history and if anyone knows their history, they know government power is deceptively deadly. We don’t give an inch.

    Went to see a friend in a blue state, and the hysteria was as annoying as it was hilarious. I ended up spending more time in my Airbnb relaxing than going to theme parks and masked BBQs. So restful, I gotta say. Got a lot of writing done, ordered fantastic food and ate in a robe on the balcony watching the sunset for a few nights. Fuck fear.

  19. Our state parks were completely full of NY license plates for much of 2020, so that was kinda like being in a different state.

    Generally though, there were differences the further you got from the city. Most people were still masking and following guidelines wherever you went, but there were a handful not wearing masks the further out into BFE you went. A lot of places in the city wanted proof of vaccine to enter a business, whereas basically nobody was asking for that outside of it. Once people started getting vaccinated life was pretty much back to normal in most places, but the city held on to restrictions for a bit longer.

  21. There wasn’t much of a difference, besides the more corporate businesses requiring masks.

    Imo everyone would get it eventually, because it will never go away and hasn’t. Just get the vaccine and move on with life, no need to ruin businesses or spread hate over it from either side of the opinion spectrum.

  22. Masking in my area (most blue county in the state I believe) took masking and social distancing seriously and most people wore masks everywhere. Outside of the greater cleveland dares, especially into more rural areas, the masks dropped significantly and it felt like people were almost challenging you silently when you wore one.

  23. I lived in a city, which typically is blue, and this one was still not fully blue. However many people wore masks and didn’t get upset about it. I witnessed a few interactions of people getting upset about it at stores but nothing like the drama you’d see online.

    As soon as you leave the main city areas or visited small towns, people generally didn’t wear masks and it was a little surreal. But I never felt awkward being a person wearing a mask. It’s not like EVERYONE didnt’ have a mask, most workers did, but some didn’t even if they were probably told that they should.

    That was the biggest difference I can think of from my experience. I don’t think it’s blue/red related but interestingly I never really heard of people I know getting covid until early this year. It was always a family member of a friend or something like that I would hear about. However after getting vaccines the people I knew who were always really careful started getting it around me. Not sure if it was something that was bound to happen or because we lowered our guard – either way no one went to the hospital over it.

  24. I was in Sweden for the first two years of the pandemic, where the blue are the red and the red are the blue.

    Sorry guys, I’m pretty damn high.

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