My conclusion was that education does not equal to rationality with regards to human rights and that democracy is not good but it is the best system we had so far.
So the whole link between the pandemic and political systems is mostly nonsense, the countries where the impact is least are simply the ones that reacted fastest and most decisive. Everybody else is playing catch-up and they may have to substantially pause their 'freedoms' and 'democratic rights' to get through to the other side.
This is a simple result of early incompetence and refusal to assign sufficient gravity to the situation.
I do not trust that number at all.
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/07/world/australia/new-zeala...
If you want to argue the opposite then you should substantiate that with data and sources, rather than just with claims left hanging without support.
I'm sure there is going to be some discrepancy between the facts and what we get from official communications but at this point in time there are very few governments left that have been 100% transparent during this whole saga. China likely is no exception to that but I would not expect them a-priori to be worse than say Russia or some of the countries of the EU.