The degree of the epidemic in a given country during March-April seems to reflect at least three factors: (1) luck (e.g., did you get early spread like Lombardy

The degree of the epidemic in a given country during March-April seems to reflect at least three factors: (1) luck (e.g., did you get early spread like Lombardy), (2) public health policy, and (3) resource limitations that were unavoidable given the short warning period. South Korea was well prepared by SARS, and did extremely well on (2)+(3). Other Western nations had good policy responses, but didn't have the resources in place by February/March. However, many countries that were unprepared have since made significant efforts to increase resources and deploy successful policy. A look at the epidemic curves in May shows that results are diverging even between Western countries that had similar initial growth. Some, despite starting with a similar initial case spread, are seeing significantly greater declines than others. Some are deploying testing resources at a higher rate. Ignoring current performance and lumping all Western nations together completely ignores all of this and makes it seem like humans are helpless to control epidemics, which is an absurd claim.