[Genuine Realist]

Maybe but the success of the named countries doesn't appear to have much to do with the gender of the head of state, but other factors, such as easily identifiable clusters, smaller population, efficient health services, etc. 


Quite apart from CDC problems, the US experience seems largely related to the much larger amount of traffic between China and the US that continued through January.

I will start by saying that I too would be skeptical of sweeping generalizations about gender and effectiveness of interventions.  For example, Taiwan has done well (and has a female head of state), but so are Singapore and South Korea, who have male heads of state.  Likewise the Nordic countries score pretty well (Iceland, Finland, Norway), but so does Denmark (Sweden is a different case because it deliberately pursued a policy of not locking down, and does have a higher proportion of cases and deaths than most other Nordics).

Now that being said, I agree with 2006alum; there's no evidence that the US experience is solely due to the increasing amounts of traffic between the US and China.  Genetic analysis of the cases in New York show that most of them actually came via Europe, not spread from China.  The West Coast.  And ultimately, when the extent of the impact of the virus in the US is worse here than China, the defense that "but he banned travel from China" strikes me as a bit like telling Mrs. Lincoln "But the play was great, wasn't it?"  The numbers speak for themselves, and the numbers in the US are bad.

BC

The speed of events is almost as fast as the virus. There's a need to reframe constantly. It's obvious now that the travel ban to China was not adequate. The more subtle political point is that even that limited measure was sharply criticized by the opposition, which made more drastic measures politically impossible. The nations that did better either have more authoritarian political structures, more warning, or a simpler cluster pattern.

FWIW, my own view is that the drastic regimen we are living with couldn't have been imposed much earlier than it was, for all sorts of practical reasons. You need to have public awareness and a political consensus. So - although it's a gigantic amount of water under the bridge - it is water under the bridge.

[Genuine Realist]

Maybe but the success of the named countries doesn't appear to have much to do with the gender of the head of state, but other factors, such as easily identifiable clusters, smaller population, efficient health services, etc. 


Quite apart from CDC problems, the US experience seems largely related to the much larger amount of traffic between China and the US that continued through January.

I will start by saying that I too would be skeptical of sweeping generalizations about gender and effectiveness of interventions.  For example, Taiwan has done well (and has a female head of state), but so are Singapore and South Korea, who have male heads of state.  Likewise the Nordic countries score pretty well (Iceland, Finland, Norway), but so does Denmark (Sweden is a different case because it deliberately pursued a policy of not locking down, and does have a higher proportion of cases and deaths than most other Nordics).

Now that being said, I agree with 2006alum; there's no evidence that the US experience is solely due to the increasing amounts of traffic between the US and China.  Genetic analysis of the cases in New York show that most of them actually came via Europe, not spread from China.  The West Coast.  And ultimately, when the extent of the impact of the virus in the US is worse here than China, the defense that "but he banned travel from China" strikes me as a bit like telling Mrs. Lincoln "But the play was great, wasn't it?"  The numbers speak for themselves, and the numbers in the US are bad.

BC

The speed of events is almost as fast as the virus. There's a need to reframe constantly. It's obvious now that the travel ban to China was not adequate. The more subtle political point is that even that limited measure was sharply criticized by the opposition, which made more drastic measures politically impossible. The nations that did better either have more authoritarian political structures, more warning, or a simpler cluster pattern.

FWIW, my own view is that the drastic regimen we are living with couldn't have been imposed much earlier than it was, for all sorts of practical reasons. You need to have public awareness and a political consensus. So - although it's a gigantic amount of water under the bridge - it is water under the bridge.