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.