what if they said "Europe and North America"?
I wouldn’t object, but I’m not European or North American. Even within Europe there was a variety of responses to covid.
Different places are different. We may all be addicted to the same smartphones, but globally the way different counties responded to covid differed wildly. Even painting the whole of the USA with the same brush feels a bit reductive.
This is just as true in the west as it is in the east.
Australia and NZ are usually considered part of "the west". Culturally and ethnically, this is certainly true. You're frustrated people lump everyone in Asia together, as if its all one country. Please don't make the same mistake with "the west". We aren't one country either.
If you want to criticise the USA's handling of covid, do so. Us westerners aren't a homogeneous block either. I'm proud that Australia's covid response was much closer to that of Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam than it was to the USA and Canada.