Now that Americans have entered the debate (and trust me they are the worst) on disease preparedness between China and the US, my head is constantly exploding for multiple reasons but here is the one I'll hit this time: people have zero grasp of how the systemic issue drive 1/n
So much of the conversation and the subsequently lack of understanding of trade offs. So much of the real difference in response comes down to how the government prioritizes control over the population. Believe it or not, the US government does not prioritize control over 2/n
the population and definitely not relative to China. China's first response was to hush it up. Once it couldn't it went into full scale lock down both physically and heavily on speech. The US government implemented a direct flight ban but did not stop individuals of any 3/n
nationality or ethnicity from travelling back to the US via other countries. Even upon return there was minimal health review and they were given orders to self quarantine though no one checked back to the best of my knowledge. Even the early CDC orders were only to look for 4/n
Unambiguous direct evidence of the disease which could easily be confused with other things. Why does this matter? The US and Chinese government have radically different ethos and philosophies. The default of the US government is for freedom with deprivation of said freedom 5/n
only rarely. The Chinese government focus is to demonstrate absolute control with freedom granted rarely. Why does this matter? To take many of the steps China or others have taken require significantly escalated levels of government intrusion. Imagine sharing constant 6/n
real time health data with the government just to check. Actually, we have laws AGAINST that type of thing. Early on, when the Trump administration banned travel, there was criticism of the travel ban (which TBF corona was likely already in the US). Point being: there is a 7/n
trade off between government control and monitoring over a situation and potential spread vectors. One can argue a disease outbreak is a valid use of governmental powers but let's set that aside for now. There is an inherent trade off between the demands to control and what 8/n
legal and administrative powers a government has and exercises. The US government defaults to playing less of a role. Hence why forcing people into quarantine would likely meet strong legal push back. Let me give a final off topic example. When people say why can't we be like 9/n
China and have railroads built in a few months, we're just not as competitive, I respond no because we're better! Sure land owner rights, environmental restrictions, safety regulations, independent courts, and labor regulations seem pesky and we can debate whether 10/n
the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction but those are all good things. They are part and parcel baked into the system. Yes, the US government doesn't have your real time data and that's a good thing.
