Originally Posted by
usedtobeimportant
I think the key differentiator is we value individualism a lot and the arguments driving the lack of a tight lock down were about civil liberties not group good. Nothing wrong with that, just that we will suffer longer than other countries who did the tight lock down.
There's probably no other country that values group good more than Japan, yet as you can see by my post above, their existing laws are very protective of civil liberties, even more than the U.S., in relation to the pandemic, which surprised me. Despite that, deaths in Japan from the virus are close to those of Australia and New Zealand, so I wonder if the argument of individualism vs. group good is valid.