Being small kind of a bigger deal than being an island. Air travel doesn’t care much if you’re an island or not. The US is practically an island in many senses except for Mexico and Canada, but the virus didn’t come over land, it came over air in multiple places, especially from folks going on Alpine ski trips.

If we had shut down air travel early on globally (not just China...) and pursued a vigorous in-country test and trace program, we would’ve had a chance.

Unlikely imo. False reliance on testing has created more issues than it helped. Look at Taiwan (another small island nation). They don't bother testing. If you are sick, it's assumed you have COVID and you quarantine for two weeks. Much smarter and safer imo.

I disagree, and think small island nations do have much better chances. Otherwise we'd probably have great success stories in places like Andorra, Armenia, and Vatican City. I'm sure island countries to be more self reliant, with fewer major transport hubs that can be locked down.

Vatican City is not a near-island like the US, tho. It’s a micro state with massive travel to/from the rest of Italy (which was hit early).

Taiwan had high mask usage early on. That would’ve helped a lot in the US.

Testing was very successful, actually, in places like Singapore. Didn’t help that there was official discouragement of wearing masks followed by culture-war mask avoidance in the US.

I don’t think the ‘island’ part is the important bit, but the ‘small’ might be. Hawaii and the the UK are examples of islands that haven’t done that well.

See my other comment. Neither have Andorra, Armenia, or Vatican City.

I think from what we've seen, you need to be a small island nation AND have a strong policy response to have a chance at averting this crisis.