Sure. But China, arguably not much of a democracy did just fine.

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.