A new study has found that Republican-led states have had a higher rate of COVID-19 cases and deaths than those led by Democrats. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Medical University of South Carolina found that as the pandemic progressed, . States with Democratic governors took harder hits early in the pandemic, when scientists and public health officials were still learning about the virus. But the study found that “on June 3, the association reversed, and Republican-led states had higher incidence ... For death rates, Republican-led states had lower rates early in the pandemic, but higher rates from July 4 through mid-December.” The researchers wrote that a reason for this could be “policy differences” and the level of strictness when it came to enforcing guidelines.