Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat
I think it&#x27;s a different reason. Let&#x27;s analyze the outcomes from game theory perspective, along two dimensions: virus becomes pandemic or not, and governments do something or nothing.<p>1) no pandemic, no action -&gt; government was &quot;right&quot;, avoided wasting money -&gt; reelected<p>2) no pandemic, action -&gt; government was &quot;wrong&quot;, wasted a lot of money, damaged the economy, inconvenienced the lives of the population -&gt; voted out<p>3) pandemic, no action -&gt; government was &quot;wrong&quot;, caused loss of lives and damaged the economy -&gt; voted out<p>4) pandemic, action - this is the trickiest scenario, so let&#x27;s consider two options:<p>4a) pandemic, action, it works -&gt; government was &quot;right&quot;, saved lives, spared the economy -&gt; reelected<p>4b) pandemic, action, doesn&#x27;t work -&gt; government was &quot;wrong&quot;, their actions failed, they&#x27;re incompetent -&gt; voted out<p>There&#x27;s two winning scenarios, (1) and (4a), but the problem is that (4a) has vanishingly small probability of success... with little information available about the virus, and rampant globalization, it&#x27;s hard to know what action makes sense, is correct and viable... Case in point is Italy, which <i>did</i> act <i>in time</i> (they banned flights from China 2 weeks before the outbreak), but <i>still</i> failed (i.e. their action was &quot;correct&quot; but not &quot;correct enough&quot;) because their <i>neighboring</i> countries (e.g. Germany - not technically a neighbor but within Schengen Zone) failed to act.<p>So, politicians choose (1), no action, as the most likely winning scenario.