My loose impression is that the countries that did the best are islands: Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand. South Korea is effectively an island since its only land border is locked down. Could this be an important factor?
Now imagine telling citizens of Germany that they have to quarantine for two weeks, unable to go anywhere, etc, if they crossed over from the Netherlands. Or imagine telling a citizen of the US that their quick trip between NJ and NY means they are now stuck inside for 2 weeks.
The islands locked down and locked down hard. This might be because it is easier on an island, but it might also be the island mentality that everywhere is a long way from here and we don't want there's troubles coming here if we can stop it.
Edit: Another bullet in the "Islands do it geographically" theory also come from Australia.
Australia had 700+ new infections a day at one point. This occurred in only one state, with all other neighbouring states seeing near zero infections due to state border controls. By quarantining and mask compliance and curfews within that state, AND a social welfare system which picked up the economic fragments and put them back together, Australia was able to bring this down to zero daily infections.
Iceland is an island.
Australia has multiple states with different infection levels, and limited interstate travel until so there wasn’t spread back to resolves states.
The only countries that actually implemented these policies also happen to be “islands” which is being used as an excuse for poor management in other countries.
The UK, which England is a part of, has a land border with another sovereign state.
Finland has 131 deaths per million, Norway 111, while Sweden has 1247.
And Sweden is right between Finland and Norway.
Sweden is right between Finland and Norway. Sweden has 1,247 deaths per million, Finland 131 and Norway 111.
Edit: Wrong country.
On the other hand, the UK has done atrociously. I think the core difference here is taking things seriously. Neither the UK nor the US has actually taken this seriously. Here in greater London, masks are still not really compulsory in shops or on transport. Meetings of large numbers of people continue etc.
The reason I like Aus as an example is that they are so similar to us (apologies if I'm incorrect assuming you're a brit, American or other anglo national): they're a democratic, Liberal, aging, right wing governed, capitalist, using English common law, mostly white, trading, federal, developed urbanised, nation.
What did they do that we didn't?
They took more action quicker. They actually enforced lockdown. They aimed to minimise covid numbers instead of maximising them.
Is it your belief that Japan (which experienced some significant community spread this winter) is "not taking this seriously"? Do you think that's true of every European country that has had large outbreaks? What do you make of there being relatively little relationship among the different U.S. states between severity of lockdown policies and cases/deaths?
This is ultimately a kind of non-falsifiable hypothesis. If significant endemic spread occurs, it is simply because they "didn't take it seriously" (and there are always at least a few malingering rule breakers who can be blamed no matter where you're looking). The only data points which are examined are places where there was either strict lockdown and no spread, or "something less than" strict lockdown and some significant spread, even though globally there is a broad mix of outcomes which calls the whole relationship of lockdown severity to Covid case counts into question.
I agree that earlier action might have spared us a lot of grief (although I'm not sure how long the necessary border and travel restrictions realistically could have been maintained, or whether contact tracing would have had wide buy-in), but in the timeframe it could have been done (i.e. before there was significant community spread in the U.S.) most of the people we are now admonished to defer to as "experts" were saying to be worried about the flu, bungling the testing situation, etc.