I agree. But also, having lived in both countries for more than 20 years each (including being in Melbourne now and throughout the lockdowns), I can’t imagine

I agree. But also, having lived in both countries for more than 20 years each (including being in Melbourne now and throughout the lockdowns), I can’t imagine a country like the US ever engaging in a lockdown, or it working if they tried. It just doesn’t match their national role models of how people are supposed to act and what they’re supposed to care about. The whole defining ideal here in Australia is “mateship”. As you’re growing up, the revered role model that you’re told you should emulate is the “good mate”; being compassionate, taking people as they are, taking care of each other. That’s what they tell each other it means to be Australian. The equivalent mythic figure at the center of US society is the cowboy. It’s all about rugged individualism over there. And sure you take pains to protect your own family, but certainly not anybody else’s. Anything which requires one to take an ounce of inconvenience to help the society as a whole, that’s just not what Americans are generally raised to value. Those other folks ought to be taking care of their own families, after all. So you’ve got a whole society of people where the majority say “I’m not going to wear a mask if it mostly protects you.” And you’re certainly not going to convince a large enough percentage of people to obey a mandate as inconvenient as a requirement to stay inside their house for months at a time for it to be effective. They just won’t do it. I don’t know what realistic options they have in the US. I hope they find one. It’s indisputable that lockdowns do work if followed.. but it’s also true that the US will never be able to make the majority of their population comply with one. It just doesn’t fit the country’s stories about themselves. EDIT: In the above, I make a bunch of sweeping generalisations about huge populations of people, and I’m obviously not saying that everyone in those populations think those ways. I’m just pointing out the difference in what America says being American is about, and what Australia says being Australian is about.