Covid-19 Response: Canada v. U.S. (Part 2)

Click here for an article at Hullabaloo by Tom Sullivan entitled "Read 'em and weep."

Canada is doing a measurably better job responding to the pandemic. Orders of magnitude better, writes Zack Beauchamp at Vox:

“We have a federal government that is supporting provinces’ responses,” says David Fisman, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto. “You have a chief executive who is directly undermining the public health response.”

Another quote from the article:

Unlike polarized state governors to the south, leaders in Canada’s provinces — Liberals and Conservatives — agreed on implementing extreme measures to halt the virus’ advance. The dysfunctional U.S. response is illustrated in the graph above that compares U.S. and Canadian COVID-19 cases per capita since the outbreak began. “The comparison is a case study in how a dysfunctional political system can quite literally cost lives,” Beauchamp explains.

But at this point in the crisis, the worst you can say about the Canadian response is that it has been basically competent — what you would expect from a country with a functioning political and health care system. The United States, by contrast, hasn’t cleared this lowest of bars. Our lack of attention to public health, poorly designed national health care system, and deep political dysfunction have contributed to the greatest public health crisis of our lifetimes.