[Goose]

But the bottom line is that I don't think any nation has come up with a solution that balances out the various factors of economic distress and public health concern in a fully rational manner. There is an act-of-God quality to the Covid phenomenon that is often overlooked when we get down to 'mere politics'.

I would argue that Taiwan has come up with a rational solution that works pretty well both economically and public health wise. They did get on the disease early and did install mandatory quarantine for people entering the country early on. That was smart, but one could argue they had the benefit of previous epidemics to guide them, which Europe and the USA did not. They are fortunate to be an island nation with very heavily guarded borders, so they actually can control arrivals, which the USA arguable cannot and certainly does not.

The "plan" of the lockdowns was to get the disease level down to "manageable" levels and then to use contact tracing and testing to control the disease. We would have pretty much a "normal" situation, except anyone who got COVID-19 and all their contacts would isolate/quarantine. That was rational. That was allegedly the "plan". That could have worked. Unfortunately, we did not have and did not develop an adequate system of contact tracing and associated testing. Even in situations where contact tracing is "pretty good", the jurisdictions involved are unwilling to enforce the isolation/quarantine  requirements. Given that, the plan can't work. The politicians gave up on that plan early on, but never really came up with an alternative other than hold on for a vaccine and pray we aren't beyond hope by that time.

Europe is basically in the same situation. Places like Italy drove their case count way down. They have somewhat more will to enforce contact tracing requirements, but not enough. There are both political and practical constraints to what can be done. All of Western Europe, as well as the USA, have significant "underground" societies that basically operate outside of government control. These groups don't participate in contact tracing. Given that, there will always be enough disease remaining that controlling it by contact tracing will be problematic. This is not the case in Taiwan (or Korea and Japan for that matter), and that is why it can work for them.

[Goose]

But the bottom line is that I don't think any nation has come up with a solution that balances out the various factors of economic distress and public health concern in a fully rational manner. There is an act-of-God quality to the Covid phenomenon that is often overlooked when we get down to 'mere politics'.

I would argue that Taiwan has come up with a rational solution that works pretty well both economically and public health wise. They did get on the disease early and did install mandatory quarantine for people entering the country early on. That was smart, but one could argue they had the benefit of previous epidemics to guide them, which Europe and the USA did not. They are fortunate to be an island nation with very heavily guarded borders, so they actually can control arrivals, which the USA arguable cannot and certainly does not.

The "plan" of the lockdowns was to get the disease level down to "manageable" levels and then to use contact tracing and testing to control the disease. We would have pretty much a "normal" situation, except anyone who got COVID-19 and all their contacts would isolate/quarantine. That was rational. That was allegedly the "plan". That could have worked. Unfortunately, we did not have and did not develop an adequate system of contact tracing and associated testing. Even in situations where contact tracing is "pretty good", the jurisdictions involved are unwilling to enforce the isolation/quarantine  requirements. Given that, the plan can't work. The politicians gave up on that plan early on, but never really came up with an alternative other than hold on for a vaccine and pray we aren't beyond hope by that time.

Europe is basically in the same situation. Places like Italy drove their case count way down. They have somewhat more will to enforce contact tracing requirements, but not enough. There are both political and practical constraints to what can be done. All of Western Europe, as well as the USA, have significant "underground" societies that basically operate outside of government control. These groups don't participate in contact tracing. Given that, there will always be enough disease remaining that controlling it by contact tracing will be problematic. This is not the case in Taiwan (or Korea and Japan for that matter), and that is why it can work for them.