It's cute to frame the death toll discrepancy in terms of national character, with Americans who don't even _believe in science_ coughing on everybody as their

It's cute to frame the death toll discrepancy in terms of national character, with Americans who don't even _believe in science_ coughing on everybody as their scooters whirr merrily to the nearest hamburger depository, but at the end of the day, most Americans and Australians were killed by the same thing: their precarious positions in society. It's not like private nursing homes, increasingly casualized work, and an insane weath gap aren't a thing in Australia either. Everybody slobbering Dan's knob conveniently forgets that the second outbreak could have been avoided if the government hadn't subcontracted out all the hotel security. Australia's neoliberal death march has yet to reach the brutal conclusion that America arrived at, but it's trodding along. And smug complacency certainly won't reverse that course.