Trying to explain away every incidence of successful covid-squashing as not applicable isn’t very convincing given that there aren’t any examples of jurisdictions that failed at a real attempt at covid squashing - every one of them succeeded. And this list is quite varied - it includes jurisdictions that are islands, that have long land borders, that are countries, that are sub-country-level, that are in the Anglosphere, that are outside of the Anglosphere, that have small populations, that have large populations, that are on three different continents, etc.

> it cannot just apply at a massive nation

And yet the massive USA clearly showed through COVID control that it is simply a collective of hundreds of fiefdoms (states, cities and even corporations) they for the most part were uncoordinated and did what was best for themselves, which turned out to be no good for no one.

That's a feature not a bug IMO. I'd like individual counties and states control their fate, not federal gov since enforcement and containment is extremely localized. Federal gov can help with shortage of beds, food supplies and vaccine development which they did through Operation Warpspeed. It is befitting for Fed and illfitted to local counties.

Here in Bay Area, there was much stricter control. Counties choose their fate, their path and their citizens want to trade off lockdowns vs. COVID rates. It's their call and I respect that kind of governance.

At the extreme - I would absolutely abhor China style lockdowns in the USA.

Did the USA fared well with COVID response? Not at all. Federal gov could have done a lot better to provide guidance (not enforcement) to states and counties.

Each country has different advantages and challenges. For example South Korea is incredibly dense and dependent on public transit. Germany has no hard border. China is massive, Australia's government is dysfunctional. We arent special, we just didnt meet our unique challenges