Your theoretical comparison wouldn’t be too much use from a cause and effect perspective: most countries in the West started with a mild approach and only toughened it when the numbers got out of control.
Yes, most Asian countries had already been through SARS and have different ideas of individual rights, cracked down more harshly sooner.
E.g., Korea broadcast all positive test names through the victims’ communities, so as to help the most important social distancing. With HIPAA we can’t begin to do something like that.
the numbers never got out of control. they’re still not out of control. it was the modelling that they all depended on that is wrong
I think one of the things that set off the panic was actually seeing how the Chinese Communists locked down their people. Stories of people being welded into their buildings or even apartments, screaming to get out, etc. certainly made the fear a lot worse. People were afraid it was going to happen here.
And I’m not sure the more moderate approach would have been abandoned here or in other countries if it hadn’t been for the wildly inflated projections coming out of various “experts.” It was a total fear factor response. Of course, now they’re all quietly backing away from their numbers.