>Deaths will continue the slow roll until herd immunity is reached, either artificially via a vaccine or naturally. Masks, distancing, lockdowns do not _prevent_ infections, deaths or otherwise. They _delay_ and _slow_ infections, deaths etc. There is no perfect compliance to masks, lockdowns etc. and masks, lockdowns etc. are not 100% effective.
Then why does almost every other nation have a much lower per capita infection rate and per capita death rate?
1) I don't know how you define "every other", but there are several other states (notably, with dramatically different political responses) that have similar mortality rates.
2) It's plausible (perhaps even likely) that the US has experienced a more acute course of the virus, and thus has experienced more of its deaths already, while others like New Zealand are still in a much earlier stage.
3) The US has done a miserably shitty job of stratifying risk. There was no reason to send SARS-CoV-2+ patients to nursing homes, for example. It was possible, with the trillions of dollars spent, to completely isolate nursing homes and nearly completely isolate vulnerable populations, as most of the world's best experts advised. Instead, we chose to horizontally stratify - that is to say, constrain activity and contact regardless of risk profile. This was a huge blunder, but one that nearly every state in the world made.
>2) It's plausible (perhaps even likely) that the US has experienced a more acute course of the virus, and thus has experienced more of its deaths already, while others like New Zealand are still in a much earlier stage.
New Zealand will never get to where the US is because they have an administration that actually takes it seriously. It's also resulted in them being able to have no restrictions aside from travel for quite a long time.
What if in absence of good information about covid all countries acted more or less randomly. Then we pick the ones with the lowest death rate and call their administration wise?
I didn't say they were wise. I said they took it seriously.
There's the possibility of taking it seriously and doing the wrong thing. There's not really any possibility of saying it's a hoax and doing the right thing.
There is also a huge variance between US states. Some states have larger populations than most whole countries, and under the dual sovereignty principle of our federal system the state governments bear the primary responsibility for pandemic responses. Several US states, mainly in New England, have worse death rates than any other countries. Others are doing much better: for example Utah has a lower death rate than 51 other countries.
My point of reference is always the UK, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany, the largest five EU countries comprising 70% of the EU population. Germany is outperforming everyone, but otherwise we are right in the middle of the pack. (Ahead of the UK and Spain, about tied with Italy, a bit behind France.)
France, with one of the best socialized healthcare systems in the world, isn’t much better at 15th out of 191. So I’m not sure what that’s supposed to prove.
It means “best socialized healthcare systems in the world” have failed miserably this time for the most part. You don’t get to pat yourself on the back just because supposed peers did just as terribly.
Then why does almost every other nation have a much lower per capita infection rate and per capita death rate?