Blame the constitution. In the US system of government health is largely a state matter. Setting aside trump, the federal agencies just aren't setup to lead. They can issue statements and guidelines but lack any actual authority on the ground. State governors have the power, but even then they cannot boss corporations around (hospitals/insurance companies). They cannot even divert masks from one hospital to another, let alone demand that a patient be moved.
Now in other countries, the ones with government-provided healthcare, the national government has real authority. They can directly order policy changes. They can close individual hospitals and/or move patients. They can control the flow of equipment because they are the ones paying for that equipment. Canada just deployed soldiers into some care homes. It took less than 24 hours without any new legislation needed. A US state governor might be able to use the local national guard, but deploying the army within the US? Into a privately-run care home? That is a power trump doesn't have.
In so far as the federal government sets health policy, it does so through the carrot and stick of federal funding through equalization and other programs. I am reasonably certain that this is also an approach the US federal government has used in areas of devolved authority (particularly education).
And looking at the specific situation you're talking about, it appears the Ontario government requested military assistance, and it was granted, not the other way around.
The US federal government may not have explicit authority, but the idea that it is absolutely helpless to coordinate efforts among the states (aka interstate commerce) seems kind of blatantly absurd. Never mind that they seem to, in fact, have done quite a lot of diverting masks from where they were going to elsewhere already. Just you know, not in a helpful way.
Domestic use of US soldiers, even with a state request, is not a simple matter. Trump wanted to deploy troops along boarder --> no go. Federal troops cannot be used to implement domestic policy. New York probably couldn't get troops if it asked.
Canadian troops, if asked by any level of government, can deploy domestically and do so regularly. That's the advantage of a single sovereign authority (the crown). Everyone is literally on the same team.
The US fed exercises its health power indirectly, through spending. It can demand that certain hospitals, those that receive federal funds, act in certain ways. But it cannot dictate treatment regimes. (This fed-state split on health has been heavily influenced/reinforced by the abortion debate.)
one where blind fear and panic can’t easily trigger a cascade into surveillance fascism for a pandemic trending to be ~3x worse than the flu?
Non-biased random sampling anti-body studies reliably point to an IFR of around 0.5%
3x is just wishful thinking at this point
"The Constitution is not a suicide pact."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Constitution_is_not_a_suic...
Yes, this is a global pandemic. But at the same time, I prefer a response that is fine-tuned to local circumstances and I’m glad the WHO does not have envy authority over the decision taking in my city. Corona does not strike every region equally and at the same time. Furthermore, diversity of regulation is very important for learning what works and what does not. For example, if the Swedish approach turns out to be successful, we can copy that in case of a second wave. There is a common misconception that a coordinated approach is necessary to make sure everyone does the optimal things. That’s wrong. Regions are free to copy each other if they see what works elsewhere. If there are local differences, there is often a good reason for it and you wouldn’t want a central authority to enforce a “one-size-fits-all” response.
We could have learned a lot from them, but WHO chose to ignore their advice for political reasons.
Also, I generally think local decision-taking is faster than centralized decision-taking. So if speed is important, you should try to decentralize power and allow local governments to act on their own.
Why pick national? Almost any aspect of the response can be implemented on any level of governance except maybe individual.
It isn't at all obvious that centralising on the federal level is sensible. Realistically; the optimal organisational unit for the response might be the catchments around each hospital and so somewhere around the local level.
If the US states were literally independent countries, then they'd be able to do more. They're not, so the federal government should be doing a lot more then it is.
Your taxes pay for federal government. An entirely different set of taxes pay for state government. _Why_ are you not demanding better service?
And note the US Federal government creaking under a historically high level of debt, it has already given people far more than any taxpayer is contributing to the tune of something like @3k per if https://usdebtclock.org/ is accurate.
Of course, there are many advantages from this model. The comparison between these models of governments reminds me of 'the Prince' from Machiavelli. In that book, he compared France with the Ottoman Empire. French king has relatively weak power since the nobles own their fiefs. While the Ottoman Empire there are only province officers, and the sultan can easily move or fire those officers. The comparison seems to echo what the US and China's modern political systems and possibly the pros and cons remain the same.
PS: There's a documentary from the BBC named 'the Chinese Mayor' that might help people have an initial understanding of the Chinese political system from a mayor's perspective. Chinese officers transfer from provinces to provinces in a very frequent manner, in order to avoid the local governments have too much power. This feature remains the same in China for two thousand years.
Here is what happens when someone tries to reveal to real situation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U1VYck6KOo
The person filming is currently missing.
With that being said, I didn't mention any number, but the situation turned to be optimal for quite a while - it's too obvious to anyone who lives here.
It's quite a thing to see once the government realized the downplaying was a fault, how fast and effective they could implement their quarantine policy into every corner in the society. It's both incredible and terrifying to see the executive orders implemented by every community, village, malls, and every individual.
The original point I wanted to make is, there were a lof people believed the history was ended by American style democracy, it wasn't. There is still quite a room for optimization.