You're right, it's not an argument, it was a thing to point out, that this problem is not specific to non-democracies. The reason the example is from 100 years

You're right, it's not an argument, it was a thing to point out, that this problem is not specific to non-democracies. The reason the example is from 100 years ago, is that we haven't really seen as serious a threat as that since then. The closest we've had in the western world since then, was AIDS in the 80's, and I don't think the response was all that top-notch in the first few years. But then, the disease speed of mortality was much slower. We haven't really seen what a western democracy would do in a case like this, since 1918.