As for crisis control, authoritarianism has its advantages

Cases and deaths have dropped drastically in China, which admittedly went about things in a heavy-handed way.

By

Opinion

March 18, 2020 - 9:53 AM

A man crosses an empty highway road on Feb. 3, 2020 in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, the epicenter of the global coronavirus outbreak. Photo by Getty Images/TNS

To understand how the United States is dealing with the threat of coronavirus, you have to hold two truths in your mind simultaneously.

First, the risk to any one individual in the United States is low. Even if you contract the virus at some point, your symptoms will likely be mild.

Second, we can ill-afford to have everyone contract the virus at once. Even if only a small fraction of the cases require hospitalization, our health care infrastructure isn’t prepared to handle the influx of cases.

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