China and Europe have public healthcare and social safety. They've been much worse off than the US so far.
I'm not saying that won't change, but to sit here and shit all over America's approach to limited government is a premature celebration.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/07/24/o...
PS: It’s also irrelevant as many people identify as independents while actually voting overwhelmingly for a single party. Further, political power has nothing to do with the national popular vote let alone what the non voting public believes. For example Trump won with 46.1% of the popular vote and votes from about 19.5% of the total population. That’s simply how the system works and what shapes politics.
My guess is it’s a difference between stated preferences and actual preferences.
And some countries like Japan have public health care. Despite being one of the first countries with widespread infection, they’re still far below America.
It's also pointless to say that we have a bad outcome when it's only now beginning to grow. We don't know how this is going to turn out, but the US is not in a worse position to deal with this than most other countries.
Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc. responded well because they already had to deal with SARS. They had infrastructure in place to respond to an outbreak exactly like this one. The US didn't have that experience, but we're catching up.
Moreover, we still don't know if China has actually weathered this storm. It is very possible that this could tick back up once they start going back to work. If that happens then all of this effort could end up as nothing more than a stall on the inevitable.
It will also be interesting to see the court cases that come from what American governments have done so far; there's a serious case to be made for violations of our right to freely assemble. Even the time, place, and manner standard (which is still contested but is current precedent) may not cover such drastic curtailment of all public gatherings.
Sadly, these things usually happen and get fought out in court later (see Japanese internment camps) when in some sort of crisis state, so I doubt constitutionality has any bearing on the pencil-pushers latest and greatest idea.
Friendly reminder that, while I don't see any malicious intent in the current actions, these directives specifically sound disturbingly close to those issued by many an authoritarian government:
> You cannot engage in group activities in person with others.
> You cannot have dinner parties. You cannot invite friends over to your home to hang out.
The precedent set today could be abused in the future, particularly precedent that looks like this.
And yet, China's number of active cases went from 81K to 9K in a few weeks.
No matter how you feel about China, you can believe Tim.
To answer your earlier comment, even if the cases dropped, are you arguing that we implement authoritarianism just because it's more convenient in this case? Classic "trains run on time" argument. Of course it offers some benefits, but the losses are far greater.
> To answer your earlier comment, even if the cases dropped, are you arguing that we implement authoritarianism just because it's more convenient in this case? Classic "trains run on time" argument. Of course it offers some benefits, but the losses are far greater.
Not making an argument one way or the other just stating some facts. People can make up their own minds.
If we get off easy it will be because warmer temperatures or mutation play a part.
Delayed testing, a disbanded pandemic response team, a president in denial for the first part of the outbreak, people not going to hospitals because they can't afford it... Do you sincerely think these things put the US on equal footing with the rest of the world in terms of responding to this?
Keeping those in mind. Yes, we might get off easy. Yes, it might turn out worse for us. No, the outcome will not be 100% correlated to government effectiveness.
That said, the US healthcare system still leads the world in research, funding, talent, etc. Is it more expensive? Yes. Is it the best system for public health? No, probably not. But we do have our own advantages.
Immuno-suppressant therapies that are being used as a last resort for COVID 19 were developed by Genentech. Roche and Genentech are leading the way on development of a vaccine. The US healthcare system is home to some of the world's foremost experts on drug development and patient care.
We are undoubtedly better off in dealing with this than many other countries. We're probably not the top percentile, but we are most definitely among the top 5-10%.
Those words are doing a lot of work. If we densely-packed city folk don't work extra-hard to contain this, it's going to absolutely raze our health, and other support systems.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/seattle-flu-study-coronaviru...
I think this is a simplistic view. We're not only talking about infection rate here.
edit: Social safety nets, medical debt, etc.
Lets talk about medical. I haven't heard anything about hospital bed shortages in the US yet. Again, not saying we won't get there, but China had to build entire new facilities because they didn't have adequate infrastructure.
Lets talk about essentials. American stores might be temporarily out of toilet paper, but Wuhan is currently dealing with dramatic food shortages.
That said. Italy basically denied having a problem until they couldn't anymore. China's safety net health system did everything they could to cover up the crisis until it exploded in their face. Other countries haven't been doing much more to prepare than the US.
People like to hate on it, but the US government still functions are a comparatively high level while maintaining a degree of individual freedom that other countries do not.