Chapter 1 - Science, Politics, and History

Summary

The world responded in many different ways to the coronavirus epidemic. Why is that? Three obvious solutions present themselves: different understandings of the nature of the disease and how to tackle it, the nature of the political system in each nation, the history of how pandemics had been dealt with in the past in each country. Upon inspection, none of these explanations seems to work. The scientific understanding of the disease and its means of spreading were broadly similar in all nations. Only at the margins did unorthodox theories hold sway. Most nations claimed to be following expert advice, but what the experts advised differed. Politicians could pick and choose among the counsels they received. Both democracies and autocracies tried each of the three possible approaches to the pandemic, targeted quarantine, broad lockdown, or a hands-off approach. And nations did not obviously follow the tactics they had used in previous epidemics. The heavy hand of past public health interventions, with the state compelling citizens to follow behavioral prescriptions, was harder to implement today.