> how does a society fight something communicable like this? Probably like all the other societies around the world who have fought it: have a citizenry that g

> how does a society fight something communicable like this? Probably like all the other societies around the world who have fought it: have a citizenry that generally accepts collective action for the public good. South Korea, New Zealand, Japan, many others - all the countries with the best response have a relatively high percentage of their populace who are willing to accept restrictions and "do their part" for their fellow citizens. This requires, among other things: - high trust in government - low levels of misinformation - robust education system that teaches the populace to think both critically and empathetically Unfortunately, the USA has none of these. Distrust in government is at all-time highs, misinformation is at an all-time high (frequently to specifically cause distrust in government), misinformation is also funded with multi-million dollar campaigns. And in 2020 we still have problems deciding on how much science to include in our school curriculum. I think some of these problems are particular to the USA because of our status as a global superpower (reserve currency, global military presence, etc), so there are many tier-2 nations with a strong interest in taking a piece out of the USA specifically, to make space on the global stage for themselves (Russia, Iran, China over the last decade, etc). This leads to well-funded and state-sponsored disinformation campaigns and meddling arriving at our shores. I would include all the industry-related misinformation and meddling from mega-corps here too, as many are rich & powerful as some small nations at this point. These actions, combined with the political brinksmanship from both major parties (though the red side seems to have a stronger grasp on the major media outlets in terms of total viewership, so I place more blame at their feet), and further combined with our cultural history+tendency to individualism and the "rugged rebel" archetype, has created the current "COVID is a hoax, masks are tyranny" crowd. These are the reasons why collective action, while not impossible, is extremely unlikely to succeed in the USA at present. I have no idea how to even begin fixing these problems, other than reversing Citizen's United and trying to reduce the amount of money in politics, which even then would be a decades-long process that takes further decades to produce measurable results. Even if we started now we MIGHT see positive change by the end of the century.