Dysfunctional Government is Deadly
By 
Does the almost surreally incompetent American president presiding over a dysfunctional political system really matter to handling of the pandemic? Yes:
Per capita, the United States is currently seeing about twice as many confirmed coronavirus cases as Canada and about 30 percent more deaths. When you look at per capita cases and deaths across the course of the entire outbreak, the comparison looks even worse: the United States has over two times as many confirmed coronavirus cases as Canada and roughly twice as many deaths.
Canadian testing rates have been consistently higher, especially during critical early stages for the two countries: In mid-March, the Canadian testing rate was roughly five times higher than the American one.
To explain this divergence, I spent the last week speaking with Canadian public health experts who had been following the situation in the two countries closely. These experts varied in their take on their own country’s performance during the pandemic, assessments ranging from middle of the pack by global standards to one of the very best in the world.
But they all shared the same view of the difference between the United States and Canada: The Canadian policy response has been orders of magnitude better than the American equivalent.
“We have a federal government that is supporting provinces’ responses,” says David Fisman, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto. “You have a chief executive who is directly undermining the public health response.”
There are a number of factors that have enabled Canada to perform at a higher level than the United States, including more consistent pre-virus funding for public health agencies and a universal health care system. But one of the most important seems to have been a difference in political leadership.
The American response has become infected by partisan politics and shot through with federal incompetence. Meanwhile, Canada’s policies have been efficiently implemented with support from leaders across the political spectrum. The comparison is a case study in how a dysfunctional political system can quite literally cost lives.
Three more cheers for parliamentary democracy!
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Monday that the country needs to reopen, despite separate key coronavirus models forecasting that thousands may die daily in the United States from Covid-19 and that more than 100,000 may die in total.”Of course, everybody wants to save every life they can — but the question is, towards what end, ultimately?” Christie, a Republican tapped to lead President Donald Trump’s presidential transition team in 2016, told CNN’s Dana Bash on The Daily DC Podcast. “Are there ways that we can… thread the middle here to allow that there are going to be deaths, and there are going to be deaths no matter what?”
Yes. Yes, there sure will.