> Could you tell me in what way authoritatian countries (aka China) handles this situation better?

Singapore is a pretty authoritarian country and until recently had the most cases outside of China. Now most infected people in Singapore have recovered and other countries have more infected people.

WHO 'very impressed' with Singapore's COVID-19 response: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-ver...

Singapore has ‘near-perfect’ coronavirus detection, Harvard study says: https://www.businessinsider.sg/singapore-has-near-perfect-co...

> I think US is best positioned to handle this well.

A lot of people in the USA try to avoid visiting the doctor because they can't afford it. That single factor alone puts the USA at a massive disadvantage.

The problem with the US is that healthcare is so broken that nobody will want to go to the doctor to get checked because it's too expensive.

And you can shed the virus without symptoms. Who will take limited sick days for a 14+ day incubation before they're symptomatic? Who eats the cost of being out sick for multiple weeks? Business can legally fire people for not show up for work, even if they're sick. Essentially no one has wage insurance, and median savings $1200 per the Federal Reserve won't go far.

Even in a "socialist utopia" with public healthcare and good sick leave there are a lot of open questions like that and I get the feeling that the poor will be hit hard. If they shut down non-essential places then how do the people working there pay for rent and food? If they shut down schools then can the parents take paid time off to look after kids? What if the parents are nurses? So far I haven't seen an explanation of how all this plays out, or how it's playing out in already quarantined areas.

I'm about to finish my current job which wouldn't normally be worrying, but if hiring stops and interviewing becomes impossible the equation changes pretty fast.

That "utopia" you describe is the norm in Europe.

But yes, every country will get economically weakened, for one reason or another, and usually the ones who suffer most are the poor.

And folks going into work sick because they need to afford rent

Don't count on the EU doing anything other then slow talk. They are definitely not going to close any borders. At least I would be very surprised if they did.

The EU itself has no power to do that. Each country has to temporarily re-introduce border control. They often do!

https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/border...

It's not a power the EU has. Health care as well is just not a subject the EU has any role in.

Not so - there are many areas where the EU is involved: every EU citizen gets the same access to healthcare in each country as their own citizens, that's one of the rules of membership. Coordinated health research just to name another area...

Not the EU as an institution but single countries. I wouldn't be surprised if Austria closes their border if there are more cases in Northern Italy. Germany, Switzerland and France could also follow. I believe they'd still let freight through (maybe with tests for drivers) to not hurt the economy too much. Ironically, the refugee situation a few years back helped those countries as they now have the infrastructure to patrol borders better and built centers that could as well be used to isolate potentially infected people.

But I also wouldn't count on all of this happening too fast, there's still passenger flights arriving from mainland China in Europe.

Tourism, in all directions, is too important a factor that closing up borders is really on the table right now. Austria for instance, where I come from, will definitely NOT close the borders to Italy in the upcoming days. And in my personal opinion, there is really no reason to panic because of a media-hyped flu outbreak.

famous last words of a certain Hubei governor.

go read the treaties before commenting about this topic.

Isn't the story circulating now that Trump eliminated the infrastructure set up to specifically deal with global health emergencies and pandemics?

Just my opinion, of course, but I guess one very simple way I think about it is, a government that expends a lot of effort controlling its people even in normal times is naturally better equipped to do so than a government that generally encourages individualism and freedom among its population.

For example, North Korea reportedly executed a guy for breaking quarantine [1]. China may not be nearly as extreme, but the government is similarly domineering. If your choice is "be quarantined or be disappeared" then you shut up and stay home. But "be disappeared" is not the alternative in many Western countries. Again, just my totally uninformed opinion as a coder sittin' at home. In any case it'll certainly be interesting to see how it turns out.

[1] https://nypost.com/2020/02/13/north-korean-official-reported...

I believe you miss some crucial information in your argument. An administration which controls tightly a population must appear to be correct. The administration must make the perception its plans are infallible.

It is the perception that the administration’s plans and officials are infallible that it is after. Not the actual actions.

An administration which can confront when its officials can do wrong, which can act on errors instead of hiding them can do well. The perception of its actions take effort and steps to explain.

The reference on such institutions is outside the scope of the current comment. When I started writing, I realised it has to be a very long.

But my opinion is that democratic countries will do well. We might hear more, but their problems will be less. I used to live in an authoritative nation, so there is a difference between the information and the common communication on problems.

Check Hayeks’ writings to see how such communication becomes controlled by marketing ‘authoritative plans’

That is just power fantasy. Do you have any evidence that shooting people for breaking quarantine has effect? I think it just causes people to avoid doctors if they experience symptoms. People do not want to "disappear" into quarantine. I lived under authoritative government and know how it works.

Initial situation was made much worse because China policed their doctors.

Also I do not think that China actually shoots people. It shutdown transport and pumps money into economy. Other states could do that as well.