Chapter 4 - What Was Done?

Summary

What were the preventive tactics implemented across the globe? Nations varied in their approach. In Asia, the authorities took aim at the infected and their contacts. They tested widely, quarantined the sick, and isolated those who had been near them. That required enormous administrative efforts, massive amounts of information about citizens and their habits, and their subjects’ willingness to tolerate fierce interruptions of their lives. In the West, however, governments were unable or unwilling to impose the same degree of prevention on their citizens. Instead, they took an approach that was arguably even more interventionist, in that it affected almost all citizens, not just the ill and their contacts. They shut down society across the board for several months in the spring of 2020, requiring those who could to work from home, and closing schools, retail, restaurants, theaters, and anywhere else people might come in contact. The result was far greater economic devastation than in the more targeted Asian approach. But applying across-the-board measures did not involve the same degree of personal surveillance. Finally, some nations, above all Sweden, relied on citizens taking precautions under their own steam, without the law having to require them to.