As I've said before, I strongly suspect that when this is all over, there will be a heck of a lot of deviation in results that don't neatly align with a "stupid government" vs. "enlightened government" dichotomy. Although people will certainly try.

The Northeast US is, at least in parts, some of the worst in the world that is known about and, other than being pretty dense, it really doesn't map to especially poor government response by reasonable definitions. Perfect hindsight doesn't count.

Seems reminiscent of astronomy with less accurate measurements.