My take is that the western world pursued the lockdown purely out of the will of its people, rather than that of its governments. There's a great post (which I

My take is that the western world pursued the lockdown purely out of the will of its people, rather than that of its governments. There's a great post (which I'll look for) that highlights that, no matter which US state you were in, you entered lockdown roughly within the same 2 week period as everyone else, regardless of what measures the state enacted. People in Florida, where the government was very slow, locked down roughly the same time as the people in New York, where the government was very quick. Under this lens, you can look at the government's response to COVID 19 as not a response to the pandemic, but a response to people's response to the pandemic.