[Goose]

Australia and New Zealand were not prepping for years, and both have strong ties to China (New Zealand via tourists, who would have flocked for the New Zealand summer, and Australia because of exports of minerals and coal).

Only sort of true. While neither country had a significant SARS outbreak, both countries have very active border control of infectious agents. They are very aware that some of their neighbors regularly have outbreaks of infectious disease. This isn't so much China as it is Indonesia and New Guinea. Right now AIDS, Influenza and TB are of epidemic proportions in New Guinea. Australia and New Zealand are quite aware of that and maintain active surveillance. There is a big carry over. In addition, both Australia and (especially) New Zealand were "behind" the infection curve. They had time to see what happened elsewhere.

You are right of course, that there were failures in preparation, but I think the lapses in leadership exacerbated the current situation.

No disagreement there. It would have been bad enough if the President had simply equivocated in the beginning, saying "Were keeping an eye on it". Instead, he said "It is not a problem. Don't worry". After that, he has been more worried about who to blame than fixing the problem. The man probably had no credibility left for most people, but his actions in this case destroyed whatever there was left of it.

Also, even within Europe there is a lot of variability in response effectiveness.  We have talked about testing in Germany; Germany has about 1/4 the per capita deaths due to COVID-19 as France does.  Denmark has 1/4 the deaths of Sweden, just across the Baltic.  Preparation is important, of course, but response matters too.

Very true BC. However, as you know there are many questions about the way Germany counts COVID-19 deaths. In many cases the proximate cause of death is reported, not the fact it was COVID induced. Also, Germany greatly benefited from the prepared Bavarian public health response tracing the initial hot spots. Sweden has chosen a different path. Their leadership made different decisions.

I really don't think the actual decision making process in the various European countries has been significantly different. I think that it looks much better than ours because their heads of state did not make fools of themselves by unnecessarily saying it was no problem before they actually knew anything (except possibly Boris). It is also true that the luck of the draw regarding the dynamics of the infection in each country has made a big difference in outcome.

I just want to make sure that next time this happens we have in place a system that will protect us against a repeat. That can be done, and should be. If we don't have that, even a "good" (i.e. rational) president won't be able to avoid major problems. And, if  we have a moron as President, we will really need the automatic response because we won't get a reasoned one.

[Goose]

Australia and New Zealand were not prepping for years, and both have strong ties to China (New Zealand via tourists, who would have flocked for the New Zealand summer, and Australia because of exports of minerals and coal).

Only sort of true. While neither country had a significant SARS outbreak, both countries have very active border control of infectious agents. They are very aware that some of their neighbors regularly have outbreaks of infectious disease. This isn't so much China as it is Indonesia and New Guinea. Right now AIDS, Influenza and TB are of epidemic proportions in New Guinea. Australia and New Zealand are quite aware of that and maintain active surveillance. There is a big carry over. In addition, both Australia and (especially) New Zealand were "behind" the infection curve. They had time to see what happened elsewhere.

You are right of course, that there were failures in preparation, but I think the lapses in leadership exacerbated the current situation.

No disagreement there. It would have been bad enough if the President had simply equivocated in the beginning, saying "Were keeping an eye on it". Instead, he said "It is not a problem. Don't worry". After that, he has been more worried about who to blame than fixing the problem. The man probably had no credibility left for most people, but his actions in this case destroyed whatever there was left of it.

Also, even within Europe there is a lot of variability in response effectiveness.  We have talked about testing in Germany; Germany has about 1/4 the per capita deaths due to COVID-19 as France does.  Denmark has 1/4 the deaths of Sweden, just across the Baltic.  Preparation is important, of course, but response matters too.

Very true BC. However, as you know there are many questions about the way Germany counts COVID-19 deaths. In many cases the proximate cause of death is reported, not the fact it was COVID induced. Also, Germany greatly benefited from the prepared Bavarian public health response tracing the initial hot spots. Sweden has chosen a different path. Their leadership made different decisions.

I really don't think the actual decision making process in the various European countries has been significantly different. I think that it looks much better than ours because their heads of state did not make fools of themselves by unnecessarily saying it was no problem before they actually knew anything (except possibly Boris). It is also true that the luck of the draw regarding the dynamics of the infection in each country has made a big difference in outcome.

I just want to make sure that next time this happens we have in place a system that will protect us against a repeat. That can be done, and should be. If we don't have that, even a "good" (i.e. rational) president won't be able to avoid major problems. And, if  we have a moron as President, we will really need the automatic response because we won't get a reasoned one.