Handling it better than a lot of countries…
> China? At no point we're we arresting people for spreading the word about it?
I'm no fan of the Chinese government, but
1) their authoritarianism both kick-started this epidemic and bungled the initial response
2) AND seems to have contained the epidemic once its severity was understood.
The US and many other developed countries seem to be on track to bungling their initial response, as well. That's pretty inexcusable since they've had the benefit of months to prepare.
The US government should have paid to build up a test kit stockpile in February, but I guess now we get to see how badly free market principles handle an epidemic.
The "low" numbers are only low because the reported numbers are explicitly for confirmed cases, but the CDC and government has made it clear that testing is to be restricted as much as possible. Even if the US was capable of testing at the rates of other countries, which it isn't because the CDC has refused to use the WHO tests instead favouring US developed private tests.
Even in places like Washington that have ballooning case numbers they're not permitted to just do widespread free testing.