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I think there is a lot of fundamental attribution error going around when trying to explain relative success at controlling COVID. There are states with little

I think there is a lot of fundamental attribution error going around when trying to explain relative success at controlling COVID. There are states with little of the infrastructure for public health management you've touted in Australia that have also controlled the disease. There are states with the same infrastructure (e.g. UK) which haven't. Australia is also incomparable to the United States with 1/10th the population, comparably little cross border travel, etc. My guess is it will be years before we correctly understand exactly what worked or didn't and why.

josephg 6y ago
A lot of the science is already in on this. The most effective interventions are hygiene (washing hands), masks, social distancing and contact tracing (and quarantining close contacts). This is low tech stuff, which is one of the reasons many poor countries have been able to do very well at controlling the pandemic. Apparently the #1 predictive factor for a country to have good health outcomes is trust between the citizens and their government. Small countries have done better than big countries, but that may be a side effect of public trust generally being better in smaller countries. Source: this podcast (based on a study) https://overcast.fm/+YQ31Gx6tw https://overcast.fm/+YQ31Gx6tw